• Street Talk
  • Updated Feb 28 2017 at 10:33 PM

Local fund managers brace for IPO whirlwind

Latitude, which is slated for a 2018 IPO, provides products including credit cards and personal loans.
Latitude, which is slated for a 2018 IPO, provides products including credit cards and personal loans. iStock

Reporting season is almost over and the initial public offering pipeline is set to flow.

Bankers are filling up the diaries of investors with meetings as they get on the front foot ahead of formal deal marketing and execution.

That's happening while the equity capital markets teams also keep close to large companies that may float further down the track.

Latitude Financial Services is among the bumper potential floats for 2018 that have bankers on high alert.

The company and its owners have already fielded several meetings with banks attempting to form a close relationship ahead of any formal pitching.

Street Talk understands that the key milestone for Latitude is the complete separation from GE Capital, which is scheduled for May.

That means any serious float deliberations are unlikely until the second half of 2017.

The local GE business was acquired by Värde Partners, Deutsche Bank and KKR for $8.2 billion and then rebranded Latitude in late 2015.

Also in floats, and as this column revealed on Tuesday, Quadrant Private Equity is forging ahead with the IPO leg of its dual-track sale process for Zip Industries.

It is understood joint lead managers Citigroup, Macquarie Capital and UBS have started teeing up meetings between listed equities investors and management in Auckland, Hong Kong, London, Sydney and Melbourne, testing interest in a non-deal roadshow. A non-deal roadshow is the first step in what bankers would call the "investor education process", where fundies get to meet management and receive insight into the business in return for their feelings on valuation and appetite for the would-be IPO.

Fundies were told on Tuesday afternoon that Zip chief John Doumani and finance boss Stephen Dolahenty will hold a series of one-on-one and lunch meetings from March 7.

The mooted float of Dixon Hospitality is also making headway with Morgans landing a role as a joint lead manager alongside Evans & Partners.

Dixon's non-deal roadshow is set to get under way with the first meeting to be held at one of Dixon's 47 venues: 12-Micron at Barangaroo South in Sydney.

Elsewhere in capital markets, UBS's institutional desk crossed 9 per cent of AUB Group at $10.70 a share with QBE Insurance the seller, while Wilson HTM and Bell Potter Securities were in the market, offering up to 9.7 million shares in payments fintech Afterpay Holdings.