PE-backed Spie valued at €2.5bn in IPO

Greg Gille
10 June 2015

Tweet
Facebook
LinkedIn
Google plus
Send to

French company Spie Group, backed by Clayton Dubilier & Rice (CD&R) and Ardian, has raised €939m in its IPO on Euronext Paris.

The shares were priced at €16.50 apiece, which gave Spie a market cap of around €2.5bn – equivalent to 7.5x EBITA. The issuance of new shares allowed the business to raise €700m; private equity backers reaped €239m while management and employees received €116m.

The private equity shareholders' holding vehicle, Clayax, retains a 46% stake in the comany following the IPO. The lock-up period is set at 180 days.

One of Spie's long-standing shareholders, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, subscribed for €100-150m-worth of shares prior to the IPO.

JP Morgan and UBS acted as global coordinators, joint lead managers and lead bookrunners. Barclays, BNP Paribas, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, HSBC and Societe Generale were joint lead managers and joint bookrunners. Crédit Agricole and Natixis were co-lead managers.

Spie had launched – and subsequently abandoned – an IPO last year; the company announced plans to raise up to €921.5m in a flotation on the Euronext Paris in September 2014, but abandoned its listing plans the following month.

The flotation would have valued the business at around €2.75bn. In a statement released at the time, Spie stated it had postponed the IPO due to "volatile market conditions".

For this second attempt, Spie lowered its target slightly and set the initial price range at €14.50-17.50, compared with €15-18.30 in 2014.

The proceeds from the capital increase are expected to go towards de-leveraging the business. Spie had already refinanced its debt at the beginning of 2015, allowing the business to pay off €430m from its shareholder loan as well as repay its €375m bond. The company received a new €625m senior credit facility at Euribor +4.25%, as well as an additional €186m second lien facility at Euribor +7.75%.

Spie currently has €1.74bn outstanding under its senior credit facilities agreement, as well as €185.6m in bonds maturing in 2022. The IPO will partly repay these – the remainder will be repaid by drawing from a €1.52bn refinancing put in place in the run-up to the IPO.

Previous funding
Ardian and CD&R purchased Spie alongside Caisse de Dépôt et Placement du Québec in May 2011. The three parties acquired the business from PAI Partners, which had owned the company since 2006, for €2.1bn.

A €1.335bn senior term and revolving credit facility was arranged to finance the May 2011 deal. Part of this was a €375m bridge loan, which was refinanced when Spie placed a high-yield bond of the same value in early 2012.

Company
Spie, headquartered in Cergy, is a provider of multi-technical services in electrical and mechanical engineering, as well as heating, ventilation and air-conditioning.

The company employs 38,000 staff across 550 locations in 35 countries. It generated €5.22bn in revenues in 2014, as well as an EBITA of €334m.