LONDON – 3 June 2004, – LAWFUEL – Halfords, the UK’s leading retailer of car maintenance, car enhancement, travel solutions and cycling products (by turnover), today announced an offer price of 260p per share in respect of its initial public offering.
The offer was announced with the publication of final listing particulars in connection with the admission of its shares to the Official List of the UKLA and to trading on the London Stock Exchange’s market for listed securities. The global institutional offer by Halfords is expected to raise approximately £266.7m, with a primary offer of £140m and a secondary offer of approximately £126.7m, valuing the company’s equity at £593m following the global offer. Conditional dealings in Halfords shares have commenced today and admission to listing and the commencement of unconditional dealings are expected to occur on 8 June.
International law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer is advising Merrill Lynch International in its capacity as global coordinator, joint bookrunner and sponsor, and Citigroup Global Markets U.K. Equity Limited as joint bookrunner. The other underwriters are UBS and Cazenove.
Corporate partner Chris Mort said: ‘It is always good to complete the IPO of a household name such as Halfords, particularly in relatively difficult market conditions. With the IPOs of eircom, Catlin, Halfords and Umbro in London, and equity offerings in Belgacom, China Telecom and Iliad elsewhere, it has been a busy year to date for our equity securities group and it will be interesting to see the extent to which this continues in to the autumn. The increasing proportion of IPOs that are brought to market by private equity investors has also been a feature of our IPO practice this year.’
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s team was led by corporate partner Chris Mort and included London partners Ken Martin (US securities), Annette Byron (real estate), Simon Evans (employment and pensions) and Robert Kent (tax).
