Private equity firm Ironbridge has cut the price and size of Bravura Solutions' slated initial public offering.

According to terms sent to fund managers on Wednesday night, the deal is set to be done at $1.45 a share. 

The financial services software company's new offer price represents 9.5 times FY17 forecast pro forma EV/EBITDA and 14.8 times FY17 net profit after tax.

The offer size at the new price is $148.3 million and the indicative market capitalisation post-offer is $310.7 million. 

Private equity owner Ironbridge will retain a stake of 47 per cent while management will retain 5 per cent.

Sources said there was significant demand at the fixed price of $1.45 from domestic and offshore institutions representing a material proportion of the book. 

Bravura had initially set out to raise at $1.68 to $2.17 a share, reflecting an enterprise value-EBITDA multiple of 10.5 times to 12.6 times FY17 pro-forma forecast.

Macquarie and Goldman Sachs are leading the deal. The brokers were scheduled to close a two-day book build on Thursday.

Should the raising be successful, Bravura would begin trading on the ASX on November 16. 

 

• Share
• Share via Email
• Share on Google Plus
• Post on facebook wall
• Share on twitter
• Post to Linkedin
• Share on Reddit

Valeant Pharmaceuticals is hoping for a quick and clean sale process for pharmaceuticals group iNova. 

Street Talk can reveal indicative offers are due mid next week and a string of strategic and private equity buyers are lining up to take a shot at the $1 billion-plus business.

London-listed pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline is understood to be considering at least parts of the portfolio and Street Talk this month noted that Pacific Equity Partners has been preparing an indicative bid for iNova.

Large buyout firms including The Carlyle Group, KKR & Co and Bain Capital are understood to have received sale documents and are also weighing their options. 

The local company - which is owned by US-based Valeant - develops and markets over-the-counter and prescription medicines and houses brands including Difflam, Nyal, and Duromine. 

Valeant is keen to offload the asset as it navigates a challenging environment globally. Its shares remain 78 per cent lower this year after coming under pressure amid questions about the company's business and accounting practices.

A key question potential suitors are said to be asking centres on some of iNova's bestsellers. Of particular interest is high-margin weight-loss drug Duromine which is viewed as an attractive part of the iNova stable but does not have patent protection. 

This means prospective acquirers and their investment banking advisers will have some curly questions around its valuation. 

Street Talk flagged in September that Valeant had appointed Goldman Sachs to sell the business. Teaser documents were sent to interested parties earlier this month. 

Elsewhere in the health sector, UBS analyst Shavarsh Bedrossian has joined Primary Health Care in its strategy team. He replaces Gino Rossi who left Primary to join Arnhem Investment Management as an analyst. 

• Share
• Share via Email
• Share on Google Plus
• Post on facebook wall
• Share on twitter
• Post to Linkedin
• Share on Reddit

There is a debate brewing inside investment banks about how seriously to take the West Australia government's push to privatise the $16 billion Western Power.

Western Power's potential full or partial sale will be a key election issue heading into the new year, with the incumbent Liberals set to propose a full or partial sale while Labor campaigns strongly against it.

Every utilities and investment banking head in the market has been to WA to talk the government through its options. Premier Colin Barnett is open to the idea of a sharemarket listing ala QR National, while there is plenty of unlisted infrastructure money around which would snap it up at auction.

It's understood WA has told bankers that it is yet to make any formal appointment for a scoping study, let alone a sale mandate. It would usually be a plum job - a guaranteed role in what could be one of the biggest M&A or equities deals next year.

But the problem is banks have also been talking to the political pundits. And they reckon the Barnett government is just about dead in the water. So what's the value in putting your hand up for a scoping study that is likely to never go anywhere?

Macquarie Capital, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Lazard and others were bitten hard in a similar situation last year. The banks were ready to push the "sell" button on a raft of Queensland's power and infrastructure assets, only for the then-government to lose what most thought was an unloseable election. Months of scoping work quickly went down the drain.

Should WA move to appoint advisers, surely PwC has to be towards the top of the list. The firm pre-emptively produced a report playing into the state's power privatisation plans, which was unveiled on Wednesday. PwC - like just about every other advisory firm - found electricity networks run more efficiently in private hands.

• Share
• Share via Email
• Share on Google Plus
• Post on facebook wall
• Share on twitter
• Post to Linkedin
• Share on Reddit

Petrol stations owner United Petroleum has shelved its plans for an Australian Securities Exchange listing this year, as revealed by Street Talk on Wednesday.

It's understood fund managers have been told that the company and its advisers have stopped working on the listing plans.

United Petroleum's camp - including lead managers Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley and law firm Herbert Smith Freehills - had ramped up the listing plans in recent months, setting a December 31 target date and lodging forms with the corporate regulator.

It was always an ambitious plan, particularly with an abundance of rival floats in the market including $1 billion-plus potential listings from Inghams Group, Alinta Energy and Moly-Cop, which are all seeking to raise money and commence trading before the end of the year.

United Petroleum has 4.9 per cent of the Australian retail fuel market according to IBISWorld, and was expected to be worth up to $1 billion.

It's not the first time the company had made a push at the ASX-boards.

The retailer went on a non-deal roadshow to spruik its prospectus early last year, before the deal was pulled and the company and its advisers went about restructuring the prospective offer.

• Share
• Share via Email
• Share on Google Plus
• Post on facebook wall
• Share on twitter
• Post to Linkedin
• Share on Reddit

In the spirit of slow-or-non-growing companies revisiting M&A plans, what about a $5 billion IOOF Holdings and Perpetual Ltd tie-up? 

Putting the two together would create a financial services powerhouse with $1.5 billion revenue, $350 million annual profit and funds under management and administration worth more than $700 billion. 

The prize - as always - would be the synergies potentially available to both companies' sets of shareholders, which would be expected to cross across both costs and revenue. And in a world where Tabcorp and Tatts Group have finally nutted out a deal and boards across corporate Australia try and fund growth in a tough business climate, it would have to be at least worth considering. 

Perpetual, so the argument might go, may be well managed but has run out of growth options. Geoff Lloyd, CEO of the country's esteemed fund manager, is tinkering around the edges with M&A in Perpetual Private, but is supposed to be in the "lead and grow" phase of a five-year plan which involves exploring new opportunities. 

Lloyd's been keeping powder dry on the company's balance sheet, should an opportunity present itself. However, the real value is in its scrip. Perpetual shares trade at 17-times forward earnings, while its peers such as IOOF are a few points further behind and closer to 14-times. 

It means it shouldn't be too hard to make the numbers work for Perpetual, assuming a heavily scrip-based deal - ala Tabcorp/Tatts. 

The first question Perpetual's own fund managers would ask is why would the company want IOOF? It's not a stock Perpetual Investments has ever really been too keen on, although they are known to like cost-out story M&A and other corporate transactions. 

IOOF is one of Australia's biggest listed financial services companies with a market cap of $2.5 billion.

Its four main divisions - financial advice, administration, funds management and trustee services - would complement Perpetual's. 

From afar, it looks like a succession of bolt-ons that has never really come together as well as it could have. Which makes you wonder about the upside, should a new board and management team get given a look. 

Both companies are struggling at the bottom line. In the year to June, IOOF's underlying earnings per share fell 3 per cent, despite a hefty jump in statutory profit, while Perpetual's net inflows are going in the right direction but are hardly spectacular. 

Neither company has received much love from shareholders over the past 12 months. Perpetual shares have risen to $45.40 from $44.20, broadly in line with the market, while IOOF shares have dropped to $8.33 from above $9. 

It's just another one on investors, analysts and bankers' minds as the M&A cycle ramps up and long-held takeover targets are once again back in the spotlight. 

• Share
• Share via Email
• Share on Google Plus
• Post on facebook wall
• Share on twitter
• Post to Linkedin
• Share on Reddit