Munters Group AB SEK 1.1bn Secondary Share Sale, Sweden
2019
STJ advised Nordic Capital on an accelerated bookbuilt placement of 25 million shares in Munters Group AB raising SEK1.1bn (US$117m) on Wednesday 12th June. The placement represented 13.6% of the issued capital, 27% of Nordic Capital’s holding in Munters and 102 days average trading volume.
This was the first placement by Nordic Capital in Munters since its IPO in June 2017 and followed a re-positioning of the Company under an interim management team and implementation of a 3-phase restructuring programme.
STJ has worked with Munters since the low of the Company’s share price in October 2018. Since that time the share price appreciated 60% to recent highs.
STJ’s Strategic Research Advisory team led the preparation of an independent research-led assessment of the Company, its market valuation, and the potential opportunity. Then STJ prepared a detailed plan to help reposition the Company in the capital markets before assisting with the implementation of each step of the plan. This has included among other components; preparing content and materials for the capital markets day in Stockholm, co-ordination of research analyst and investor engagement and planning and selecting investors for the international non-deal roadshow.
For the placement for Nordic Capital, STJ’s advice resulted in a bespoke strategy that maximised execution certainty and de-risked the process (while also minimising any risk of leakage and impact on a live share price). The stepped wall-crossing process involved:
- An initial wall-crossing exercise to identify large cornerstone investors for the transaction around whom a book of demand could be built
- A broadening of the wall-crossing to a further small group of investors to provide strong, quality support for the deal
- On the back of a fully anchored and allocable shadow book, the wall-crossing exercise was further extended enabling the banks to launch a transaction with a desired deal size and fixed price after market close with a “books covered” message
Books closed 1.5 hours after launch, 2.5x oversubscribed, with a balanced mix of long-only and hedge fund demand. The deal found strong support locally however, with very strong demand from international investors further validating the non-deal roadshow engagement strategy (69% of demand was international investors who were allocated c. 47% of the shares). The book was tightly allocated towards long only and fundamental hedge fund investors with the top 10 investors taking c. three quarters of the deal.
The offer was priced at a 4% discount to the 3-months VWAP (and in line with the closing share price 3 days earlier) with the share price having significantly re-rated since the Q1 results in April. The shares opened 1.5% up relative to pricing and traded narrowly as a further testament to a controlled allocation process and ended the day at SEK44.78; 1.8% above the clearing price of SEK44.
