Investindustrial, the private equity firm founded by Italian financier Andrea Bonomi, and its co-investors are finally ready for a listing at the London Stock Exchange of their portfolio company Aston Martin, the UK maker of the iconic James Bond’s supercars, Sky News wrote yesterday.
A formal announcement is expected today after the meeting of the company’s Board which will approve H1 2018 financial statements while the listing is expected well before the end of the year.
The ipo will only consist in a sale of shares by actual shareholders, MF Milano Finanza, writes today, so no capital increase is expected. Aston Martin is now controlled by Investindustrial (37.5%), by Kuwait’s Tejara Capital (former Investment Dar) and Adeem Investments (together with a 54.5% stake), by German automaker Daimler (5%) and by the management led by ceo Andy Palmer (3%). Aston Martin will float about 30% of its equity or about one billion pounds as the group is said to be valued about 5 billion pounds.
Aston Martin reached 876 million pounds in revenues in 2017, a 9-year maximum, with 87 million pounds of profits before taxes, after a 163 million euros loss in 2016, and an adjusted ebitda of 207 million pounds, more than double the one in 2016 (see ahere a previous post by BeBeez).
Aston Martin’s evaluation is then expected to be quite higher than the one on the basis of which Investindustrial had invested the first time in 2012. Back then actually Aston Martin had posted 461.2 million pounds in revenues and a 26.4 million euros net loss. Investindustrial had invested 150 million pounds for its stake and said that it would have invested additional 80 million pound in further capital increases in order to support new investments in the coming years. That was the first investment for Investindustrial’s fund V and was based on a 740 million pounds enterprise value for Aston Martin.
In May 2015 Investindustrial and Tejara Capital announced a a 200 million pounds capital increase for Aston Martin (see a here a previous post by BeBeez).
