Fincantieri Prices IPO at Bottom of Range, Cuts Offer Size

File photo shows a cruise ship under construction at a Fincantieri shipyard. Photo courtesy Fincantieri – Cantieri Navali Italiani S.p.A.

MILAN, June 28 (Reuters) – Italian shipmaker Fincantieri said on Saturday it had priced its initial public offering at the bottom of its price range at 0.78 euros per share and cut the size of the offering by a third.

The company, which is wholly owned by Italian state lender Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP) through its Fintecna unit, is offering 450 million shares for a total value of 351 million euros ($479 million), excluding the overallotment option and gross of fees and expenses, it said in a statement.

Fincantieri initially planned to offer up to a maximum of 704 million shares, made up of 600 million from a capital increase and the remainder sold by Fintecna, at a price range of between 0.78 euros and 1 euro per share.

However, the company said on Saturday Fintecna will no longer sell any shares, which means the Italian treasury does not stand to gain much from the privatisation, and all the shares on offer would come from the capital increase.

Fintecna will, however, offer 50 million shares via the over-allotment option.

Fincantieri, which makes vessels ranging from luxury yachts to military aircraft carriers, said the offer would give it an initial market capitalisation of 1.32 billion euros.

The company will make use of a claw-back option to change the allocation of shares between institutional and retail investors.

PROJECT PIPELINE

Sources said this week the company was likely to increase the percentage of shares reserved for retails investors after a lukewarm response from institutional buyers, for whom 80 percent of the offering was initially reserved.

The shipmaker, one of several Italian companies rushing to list on the Italian stock exchange this year, will debut in Milan on July 3. Fincantieri launched the IPO to raise cash for projects in the pipeline and to fund potential acquisitions.

Banca IMI, Credit Suisse, J.P. Morgan , Morgan Stanley and UniCredit are acting as global coordinators. Banca IMI is also the lead manager of the public offering and UniCredit its sponsor.

The joint bookrunners are BNP Paribas, Citigroup , Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC and Mediobanca. Fincantieri was advised by Equita SIM and Fintecna by Rothschild. ($1 = 0.7331 Euros) (Reporting by Agnieszka Flak; Editing by Sophie Hares)

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