Dutch insurer Delta Lloyd’s initial public offering priced at 16 euros per share – at the lower end of an indicated range — and was “comfortably oversubscribed,” the group said on Tuesday.
“The IPO was comfortably oversubscribed at the offer price notwithstanding the volatile market backdrop,” Delta Lloyd said in a statement.
Aviva will receive the net proceeds of the IPO, which are about 995 million euros (899 million pounds) based on a minimum 2.5 percent of IPO fees, and excluding a potential over-allotment option of 6.35 million shares.
A source close to the deal had told Reuters the IPO priced at the low end of the range, which was set between 15.50 and 19 euros, due to the decline in financial stocks in the last two weeks.
The DJ European Insurers index .SXIP has dropped 10 percent since October 19, partly because breakup fears for state-aided banks has hit financial shares and due to general concerns stocks may have rallied ahead of the recovery.
Last month, UK insurer and majority shareholder Aviva, which wants to free up capital and potentially make acquisitions, said it wanted to sell up to 42 percent of existing Delta Lloyd shares.
Delta Lloyd shares, which will have a market capitalisation of about 2.65 billion euros, are set to begin trading on the Amsterdam exchange at 0800 GMT.
The offering, consisting of 63.5 million shares and totalling 1.02 billion euros, is Western Europe’s biggest this year and the second-largest for the whole of Europe, after that of Polish utility PGE, which was worth $2.1 billion (1.28 billion pounds) .
About 10 percent of the shares were allocated to retail investors in the Netherlands, while the remainder was allocated to Dutch and international institutional investors, Delta Lloyd said.
With Reuters
