Global Ports Holding £178m Initial Public Offering, UK
2017
STJ advised on the successful Initial Public Offering on the London Stock Exchange of Global Ports Holding (GPH). GPH is the world’s largest independent cruise port operator with a diversified portfolio of 14 ports in 8 countries. In addition to the cruise port operations, GPH owns and operates high capacity commercial ports in Turkey and Montenegro. The offering raised £178m including £52m primary issuance and a 15% greenshoe resulting in a post-money market capitalisation of £465m. The offering follows a previously attempted IPO in 2015 on the Istanbul Stock Exchange (in which STJ was not involved).
The IPO of GPH is the first international only listing of a company founded in Turkey. The re-domiciliation to the UK and the standard listing were critical to highlighting GPH's international growth prospects. STJ advised the Company to carry-out an extensive investor education process to validate the equity story and create a base of “true believers” among investors: 4 rounds of early-look meetings with 70 investors, investor site visits and over 340 investors educated by the research analysts. STJ together with Solid Solutions implemented a successful intermediaries' offer involving 28 of the largest intermediaries and over 4,000 retail investors participating in the IPO with an allocation of 12.5% of the offer. The book was well oversubscribed with strong support from both high quality institutional and retail investors, with a majority of the offering being allocated to long-only investors. The shares closed +1.4% above the IPO price at the end of the first day of trading, with volume equal to only 12.5% of the shares placed (vs. 36% turnover of another European IPO which commenced trading on the same day), evidencing well-targeted allocations.
STJ advised GPH over a period of 14 months on all the key aspects of the IPO including equity story preparation, selection and terms of engagement of all banks and advisers, listing venue, structure of the offering, marketing materials, legal documentation as well as the marketing of the transaction.
