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Freehills advises on Pacific Brands IPO
Freehills acted for Pacific Brands Ltd on its $1.25 billion IPO and listing on the Australian and NZ stock exchanges.Normal trading in the shares began this week, after the retail share offer…
Lawyers Weekly
Freehills acted for Pacific Brands Ltd on its $1.25 billion IPO and listing on the Australian and NZ stock exchanges.
Pacific Brands manages and markets many well known brands in Australia and NZ, including Berlei, Bonds, King Gee, Clarks (children’s), Dunlop, Hush Puppies, Holeproof and Tontine.
The IPO allowed venture capitalists CVC and Catalyst — who bought Pacific Brands from the then Pacific Dunlop (now Ansell Ltd) in November 2001 — to realise their investment and “exit” Pacific Brands.
Pacific Brands said the funds raised would give it an “appropriate” capital structure and enough financial flexibility to pursue growth opportunities.
Lead Freehills partners involved in the deal were Nick Wormald, Michael Ziegelaar and Philippa Stone, who had been working on the IPO since October last year.
Ziegelaar said the primary areas where Freehills advised the firm was in due diligence, prospectus content and the overall structure of the offer.
At the announcement of the IPO last month, Pacific Brands CEO Paul Moore said growth would be achieved through “ongoing brand development and marketing, growing product categories and increasing Pacific Brands’ share of those categories, operational efficiencies and margin expansion as well as bolt-on synergistic acquisitions”.
The final price to be paid per share by retail and institutional investors was $2.50, with 503 million shares available. The shares were initially offered at $2.60 for retail investors, and in the range of $2.25-$2.60 for institutional investors.
