Syntegra's Moleskine launches IPO

John Bakie
18 March 2013

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Syntegra Capital has launched the IPO of portfolio company Moleskine in a listing that could value the business at up to €530m.

Moleskine hopes to list 106,360,000 on the Milan Stock Exchange, at a price of between €2-2.65 per share. The offering is the first listing in Italy since the country's stalemate general election.

The offering consists of an institutional placement of up to 95,724,000 shares and a public offering of 10,636,000, as well as 175,000 for Moleskine employees.

An IPO for the business had been on the cards for around a year – unquote" reported in January that a listing was imminent after the company received its first clearing from market authorities.

Syntegra has owned the luxury stationery brand since November 2006, when it bought Modo & Modo from its founders for €60m. Since then, the company has boasted EBITDA growth averaging 28% per annum, attracting many potential buyers.

"Up until last year we said we weren't up for sale," Syntegra partner Marco Ariello told unquote" in January. "We wanted to continue a number of new projects, including e-commerce, extension to non-paper products and retail. By the time we started the preparation for the IPO in the middle of last year, the visibility of the brand had grown and we had seen a lot of broad interest from buyers. But our preferential and primary route remains the IPO."

Some had suggested the offering could be delayed following recent political instability in Italy, after an indecisive general election last month, but Syntegra has pushed on.

The offering begins today and will end up at 4:30pm on 27 March. In total, Syntegra is offering shares worth 50.17% of the business, excluding the greenshoe option.

Goldman Sachs International, Mediobanca-Banca di Credito Finanziario SpA and UBS are acting as joint global coordinators, with Mediobanca acting as lead manager and sponsor. Rothschild provided financial advice on the deal.

Last year, Moleskine's revenues were €78.1m, up 16.2% on 2011, with net profits of €18.1m.