STEINHOFF International’s share price leapt by more than six percent on the JSE yesterday morning after its subsidiary Pepco Group published its prospectus, which paves the way for its separate listing on the Warsaw Stock Exchange later this month valued at up to R100 billion.
Steinhoff said it had decided to launch the initial public offering of Pepco Group of up to 102.72 million ordinary shares, which represents approximately 17.9 percent of the company’s total issued share capital.
Steinhoff holds 98.8 percent of the shares that are up for an offering that will be made available to retail and institutional investors in Poland, at an offer price of between 38 Polish zloty a share (R143.69) and 46 zloty, valuing it between €4.8 billion (R83bn) and €5.8bn.
However, the group said the offer shares would also be offered to selected foreign institutional investors, within or outside of the US, and it was anticipated that retail investors will be offered up to 5 percent of the total number of offer shares included in the offering.
The expected separate listing of the Pepco Group on May 26 is a clear indication by the European discount retailer to distance itself from the December 2017 accounting scandal, which led to a more than 95 percent decline in Steinhoff’s share price.
Steinhoff currently has more than €8.92bn net debt.
Pepco Group serves more than 50 million customers a month and has a network of more than 3 200 stores across 16 countries.
Pepco Group chief executive Andy Bond said the publication of their prospectus yesterday marked a further important step towards its listing on the Warsaw Stock Exchange.
“We operate in the highly attractive discount retail sector and remain confident about the significant growth opportunity we see for each of our much-loved retail brands.
The group has a clear strategy to increase the number of Pepco and Dealz stores across the breadth of Europe by more than 8 000 in the longer-term,” Bond said.
The group has brands such as Pepco, Dealz and Poundland in its portfolio.
Pepco Group reported revenues of €3.5bn for the year to end September and it has an ambition to become Europe’s pre-eminent discount variety retailer, with a clear financial ambition to deliver more than €1bn in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation within five to seven years.
It also plans to more than triple the size of the group’s current store portfolio.
“We continue to invest in the business, which enables us to constantly improve our leading customer proposition, deliver the lowest prices to customers in each market and expand our infrastructure,” Bond said.
Steinhoff shares closed 3.96 percent higher at R2.10 on the JSE yesterday.
BUSINESS REPORT ONLINE