Brussels, 21 June 2013– bpost, the leading postal operator in Belgium, today celebrated its listing in Brussels. This is the fourth listing of a postal operator in Europe. It is as well the second largest IPO in Europe since the start of the year[1], and the largest non-finance related IPO.
bpost is a modern, efficient postal company with a network of 670 post offices and 670 PostPoints that provides the universal service in Belgium, serving every letterbox five days per week and delivering around 10 million letters and 100,000 parcels on a daily basis.
The offering comprised the sale of shares by CVC Capital Partners to institutional investors as well as to retail investors in Belgium, and to bpost’s management and employees. There was a large participation of retail investors at the IPO accounting for 20.7% of the total allotted. CVC Capital Partners will maintain a substantial stake in bpost following the initial public offering at 21.5% (before exercise of the overallotment option). The Belgian State did not sell its shares as part of the offering and will maintain its current 50.01% stake. The free float at the IPO amounted to 28.0%[2].
Listing of bpost (ticker code: BPOST) on NYSE Euronext in Brussels occurred through the admission to trading of 200,000,944 shares. The IPO price of bpost shares was €14.50 per share, valuing bpost at €2.9 billion.
“NYSE Euronext in Brussels extends a warm welcome to bpost, which is a new blue chip company listed in Brussels. At the same time, bpost’s listing underscores the attractiveness and liquidity of our market. We congratulate bpost with its IPO and look forward to a long-standing partnership with the company and its shareholders, declared Vincent Van Dessel, Chairman and CEO of NYSE Euronext Brussels.”
“We are delighted to host such a successful company on our European market in Brussels,” said Alain Baetens, Head of Listings Belgium at NYSE Euronext. The IPO of bpost demonstrates the attractiveness of public equity as a source of financing the real economy and the growing confidence of retail investors in equity. bpost’s IPO contributes to the reopening of the market for further listings on Euronext Brussels, through its transparent and secure market infrastructure.
Johnny Thijs, CEO of bpost : “I am proud that bpost is going public today. This listing is the culmination of over ten years of hard work by all our employees. I thank and congratulate them wholeheartedly. A new challenge now awaits us, because we want to excel in everything we do. That is how we will sustain our profitable growth in the future.”
To celebrate the listing, Martine Durez, Chairwoman of the Board of Directors of bpost, and Johnny Thijs, CEO of bpost, rang the bell to open trading on NYSE Euronext’s European market. They were accompanied by Jean-Pascal Labille, Minister of Public Companies.
J.P. Morgan, Nomura and BNP Paribas Fortis were the joint global coordinators for the IPO. J.P. Morgan, Nomura, Morgan Stanley and UBS were the joint international bookrunners. BNP Paribas Fortis, KBC and ING were the joint Belgian bookrunners. Royal Bank of Canada and Belfius were the joint lead managers. Petercam and Bank Degroof were the co-lead managers.