Italian casual wear retail chain Ovs aims at raising 400 million euros in an ipo this Spring with a free float of about 40-50%, Reuters revelead yesterday after having seen documents by Banca Imi, which is global coordinator of the deal.
The company is controlled by Gruppo Coin, a leading Italian retail chain, which in turn is owned by paneuropean private equity operator BC Partners , Italian private equity operator Investindustrial and Canadian Ontario Teachers Pension Plan.
Ovs decided to postpone the ipo last Autum after other ipos where pulled due to adverse market conditions (see here a previous post by BeBeez). Some weeks ago Ovs started again its procedure for listing on the Italian Stock exchange and asked Consob again for a go-ahead.
As for Banca Imi, Coin is actually expected to sell a stake in Ovs’ s capital valued about 50 million euros while Ovs will launch a capital increase of 350 million euros as company’s equity value is valued in a range between 548-699 million euros (befaore the capital increase), taking into consideration multiples from comparable listed companies such as H&M, Gap, Next, Mark and Spencer.
The company is then valued a maximum of about 1.5 billion euros or 10x Ovs’s last ebitda. Ovs business plan for 2014-2017 projects revenues to 1.47 billion euros from 1.2 billions in year 2013-2014 (fiscal year closes at the end of January) and ebitda to 198.8 millions from 150.3 millions with net profit to 63.7 millions from 15.8 millions. In the same period net financial debt is seen to drop to 550.8 millioneuros down from 726.1 millions in year 2013-2014. The new cash will allow Ovs to cut its debt down to 2x ebitda from actual 5.5x, Banca Imi says.
