STJ Advisors, in cooperation with AZ Capital, advised Rhône Capital (“Rhône”) on its placement of shares in Fluidra SA (“Fluidra”) via an accelerated bookbuilt offering
2020
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”) via an accelerated bookbuilt offering.
Fluidra is a leading global manufacturer and distributor of equipment for swimming pools. The transaction raised gross proceeds of €200m via the sale of 12.1 million ordinary shares, representing 6.2% of the company’s ordinary share capital and 96 days’ trading volume. The transaction was upsized from €175m at launch and from €125m during wall-crossing. Rhône Capital’s stake in Fluidra following the transaction will be c.32%.
The offering was launched on the back of a 24-hour wall-crossing exercise heavily weighted towards a selected group of long-only accounts well-educated on the Fluidra equity story. The transaction was marketed at wall-crossing with a discount of 5% to the closing price however the final placement price came at a discount of 4.2% on the back of strong interest. This represents a tight discount compared to a market average discount of 6.0% for European Secondary ABBs YTD. The tight discount also compares favourably to Rhône’s previous sale of €93m Fluidra shares in June 2019, which priced at a 6.9% discount.
The allocation book was skewed heavily to long-only investors, who received 89.3% of the shares, far higher than usual long-only allocations in similar transactions. The offer was 2.8 times oversubscribed at the placing price. The share price closed up 2.6% on the day after launch.
STJ provided critical advice concerning transaction timing, syndicate structure, investor targeting and long-only demand visibility, issue size and ultimate pricing tactics. This supported the achievement of Rhône's objectives.
