Intercos, Brianza-based company leader in make-up for third parties, will land on the main stock exchange list on November 2nd. The company owned by Dario Ferrari, which has the main international cosmetics brands among its clients, has therefore successfully concluded the institutional placement aimed at admission to trading. "The offering has received strong interest from leading institutional investors, with a broad geographical diversification, resulting in demand repeatedly overriding the offering price," the company said.
The offer price was set at 12,50 euro per share, therefore in the lower part of the range previously communicated (between 12 and 14,5 euros). Based on the offer price, the total value of the transaction (which includes the Over Allotment option) is approximately €350 million and the capitalization of the company at the date of the start of trading will be equal to 1,19 billion euros, including the capital increase of approximately 44 million euros.
25,4 million shares were assigned, of which 3,5 million newly issued ordinary shares deriving from a capital increase and approximately 21,9 million existing ordinary shares sold by CP7 Beauty LuxCo (approximately 13,9 million ), a company controlled by L Catterton, by The Innovation Trust (about 5,9 million), a company controlled by the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board, by Dafe 3000 (about 216,7 thousand) and Dafe 4000 (about 1,8 million) , two companies controlled by Dario Ferrari, as well as by the company on behalf of the managing director Renato Semerari (92.250 shares).
The free float is equal to approximately 26,5% of the share capital without taking into account the possible exercise of the Over Allotment option. In the event of full exercise of the option, the free float will be approximately 29,2% of the company's share capital. Dafe 4000 and Dafe 5000 requested and obtained the increased voting rights for all the shares held by them. The two holding companies, controlled by the founder Dario Ferrari, will hold a total of approximately 39 million shares corresponding to 40,7% of the total share capital, with voting rights at shareholders' meetings equal to 57,9%.
As part of the offering, BNP Paribas, Morgan Stanley, UBS and Jefferies are joint global coordinators. BNP Paribas also acts as a sponsor for the purposes of the admission to listing of the shares. Rothschild & Co is the financial advisor, while Cornelli Gabelli e Associati is the financial advisor to the controlling shareholder. The appointed legal advisors are White & Case, Maisto e Associati, Studio Legale Giliberti Triscornia e Associati while Linklaters is legal advisor for the joint global coordinators.
It is not the first time that the Brianza group has tried to land in Piazza Affari. Already in October 2019 everything was ready for the placement and Ubs, BNP Paribas, Morgan Stanley and Jefferies should have placed around 2020% of the capital in an operation with an estimated value of 50 billion euros at the beginning of 1,5. But then the pandemic and the volatility on the markets stopped everything. Meanwhile, on 1 February 2021, the sovereign wealth fund GIC Private Limited invested a stake equivalent to 9% of the share capital of Intercos in Dario Ferrari's holding companies. There was also an attempt to land on the Stock Exchange in 2014: the group intended to place around 44% for a capitalization between 320 and 411 million euros. And that time the operation had been shelved due to the turmoil that broke out on the financial markets.
Intercos, due to the pandemic effect, closed the consolidated financial statements 2020 with a turnover down to 606,5 million euros, 86,95 million ebitda and a net financial debt of 194 million. 2019, on the other hand, closed with around 713 million euros in revenues, 116 million in adjusted ebitda and a net financial debt of 182 million, down from 213 million at the end of 2018.
Last August, the company cashed in a double loan of 30 million euro each from Intesa Sanpaolo and Unicredit, both with Sace's Italy guarantee and a duration of 18 months. The line made available by Intesa Sanpaolo is structured as a Sustainability-linked Revolving Facility Agreement which induces Intercos to focus on achieving sustainability objectives, an aspect in which the company has been investing heavily for years.
