WL Ross's Virgin Money raises £312m in IPO

The company priced its shares at 283 pence each. Should the overallotment option be exercised in full, total proceeds raised in the flotation will increase to £344m.

Virgin has received around £150m of the IPO's proceeds, with the balance going to its selling shareholders, including WL Ross. Other selling shareholders are Virgin Financial Instruments and Stanhope Investments, as well as company directors, senior management team members and the employee benefit trust.

Overall, the selling shareholders are offloading 57 million Virgin shares for a total price of £162m. WL Ross will hold a 33% stake in the company following the flotation, making it the second largest single shareholder in the company, and is subject to a six-month lock-up period.

Conditional dealings commenced on Friday 14 November, with admission to the main market of the LSE set to take place tomorrow (Tuesday 18 November). The company has listed under the ticker "VM".

Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs were appointed joint sponsors and global coordinators for the float, as well as joint bookrunners alongside Barclays and Citigroup Global Markets.

WL Ross is the private equity fund of US investor Wilbur Ross. The firm was acquired by Invesco (then Amvescap) and added into its Invesco Private Equity division.

Previous investment
WL Ross acquired a 21% stake in Virgin Money in April 2010 for £100m. The firm had also previously supported the company in its bid to acquire Northern Rock.

Company
Founded in 1995 and headquartered in Gosforth, Virgin Money is a UK retail bank with 75 stores.

The company claims to have 2.8 million customers and says it had customer deposits totalling £21.1bn, and £21bn of loans and advances to customers as of June 2014. It employs 2,800 staff.

People
Jayne-Anne Gadhia is the CEO of Virgin Money.

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