STJ advises Rhône Capital on its upsized €300m placement of Fluidra SA shares
2021
We are pleased to report that STJ Advisors, in cooperation with AZ Capital, advised Rhône Capital (“Rhône”) on its placement of shares in Fluidra SA (“Fluidra”), a leading global manufacturer and distributor of equipment for swimming pools, via an accelerated bookbuilt offering. This transaction represents our third consecutive mandate to act as advisors to Rhône in a placement of Fluidra shares after the €425m ABB executed in January 2021 and €200m ABB executed in November 2020, totalling €925m of proceeds.
The transaction raised gross proceeds of €300m, upsized from €250m at launch on strong demand from institutional investors, via the sale of 9.6m million ordinary shares, representing c.4.9% of the company’s ordinary share capital and 34 days’ trading volume. Rhône’s stake in Fluidra following the transaction will be c.16.6%.
Accounts were wall-crossed with discount indications of 5%, with final placement price of €31.30 representing a tight discount of 5.0% to the market closing price, compared to a market average discount of 5.9% for European Secondary ABBs in 2021. The tight discount is in line with the discount achieved in Rhône’s previous placements.
The strong January and November placements with high allocation to quality Long Only accounts created the platform for a further 40% share price increase and inclusion in the IBEX 35 index in March.
The book consisted of c.60 lines, was c.3.1x oversubscribed at the offer price, and was skewed to Long Only investors, who received c.63% of the shares. The top 5 lines received c.50% and the top 10 lines c.73% of the deal.
AZ/STJ provided critical advice around timing, size and ultimate pricing tactics to achieve an optimal transaction (in terms of both size and price) for Rhône.
Since AZ/STJ began working with Fluidra to optimise its investment case in October 2020, the shares have appreciated by c. 100%
