KKR sells partial stake in SoftwareOne IPO

Katharine Hidalgo
25 October 2019

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KKR has sold a 5.8% stake in SoftwareOne, a developer of cloud services.

SoftwareOne priced its flotation on the Six Swiss Exchange at CHF 18 per share, giving the company a market capitalisation of CHF 2.8bn.

The IPO consisted entirely of secondary shares offered by KKR, Peruni Holding, employees and other shareholders. KKR and Peruni now hold stakes of 15.2% and 9.5%, respectively, or 14.4% and 6.7% if the overallotment option is exercised in full. The founding shareholders have retained a 30.9% stake, current and former staff hold 9.4%, the heirs of SoftwareOne co-founder Patrick Winter 7.8%, and treasury shares amount to 2.8%.

Shares began trading on the Six Swiss Exchange on 25 October 2019. The selling shareholders have agreed to a six-month lock-up period.

The syndicate banks placed 38,549,464 shares with an overallotment option offered by KKR and Peruni of 5,782,419. This implies a placement volume of up to CHF 798m.

Prior to the IPO, KKR held around 21% of shares, with Peruni Holding owning 15%, and management, employees and other shareholders holding 41%. The company's three founding shareholders own the remainder.

The company generated pro forma gross profit of CHF 724m and pro forma adjusted EBITDA of CHF 187m for 2018.

Credit Suisse, JP Morgan and UBS Investment Bank acted as joint global coordinators and joint bookrunners, while BNP Paribas, Citi, Deutsche Bank, UniCredit and Zürcher Kantonalbank acted as joint bookrunners. Rothschild & Co acted as corporate finance adviser to the company.

Previous funding
KKR acquired a 25% stake in SoftwareOne in 2015, drawing equity from its KKR European Fund IV.

Company
Founded in 1985 and based in Stans, SoftwareOne provides software and cloud technology services. It employs 5,300 employees in sites in 90 countries around the world.