could launch later this month into what
remains a red-hot market for enterprise
software offerings.
Elastic, which is incorporated in the
Netherlands but based in Silicon Valley,
initially filed confidentially on June 14.
Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Barclays, RBC
Capital Markets,Bank of America Merrill Lynch,
Citigroup, Jefferies and Canaccord Genuity are
slated to lead the IPO.
Elastic’s main offering is its so-called
“Elastic Stack”.
The company describes this as a
“powerful set of software products that
ingest and store data from any source, and
in any format, and perform search,
analysis and visualisation in milliseconds
or less”.
Competitors in enterprise search
include Google, Oracle, Microsoft and
Autonomy (acquired by HP), while Splunk
and ArcSight SIEM are rivals in security
analytics.
The financials show a business that grew
revenues 79% to US$56.6m (91% from
subscription) and generated gross margins
of 73% in the quarter ended July 31, though
the trade-off for that hyper-growth is large
operating losses (an operating loss of
US$18.4m).
Elastic has the heavy-hitter backing of
Benchmark Capital Partners (17.8% pre-
IPO) and New Enterprise Associates (10.2%),
as well as Australia’s Future Fund (8.2%)
and is led by co-founder Shay Bannon.
Assuming the ECM window remains
open, the deal could launch later in
September and price in early October.NORWAY
LISTING IN THE PIPELINE FOR
NORWEGIAN OIL COMPANY OKEAOil company OKEA has announced plans
for an Oslo listing in the next 12
months, following a transformational
acquisition.
Okea is acquiring interests in two
Norwegian oil fields from Royal Dutch
Shell for NKr4.5bn (US$534m).
Financing for the acquisition is in place
but the company is also planning a
NKr110m private placement that will
provide an opportunity for new investors
in buy in ahead of the IPO.
Okea was established in 2015, and
is a pure-play development and
production company. It reported a
net loss of NKr32.1m in the second
quarter of 2018 from a NKr6.4m loss
a year earlier.
Pareto Securities and SpareBank 1 Markets
will run the private placement.OMAN
DHOFAR GENERATING COMPANY
IPO OVERSUBSCRIBEDDHOFAR GENERATING COMPANY has wrapped up
its OR20m (US$52m) IPO with a 1.37 times
covered book, the Capital Market Authority
of Oman said last week.
The first category of subscribers, who
could subscribe for 1,000-100,000 shares,
received all the shares they ordered. That
tranche, in effect for retail investors, was
provisionally allocated 65% of the total offer.
The second category of subscribers,
whose minimum limit was 100,100 shares
up to a maximum of 8.9m shares (10% of the
IPO) were allocated 64.62% of their orders.
This portion was due to receive 31.1m
shares, 35% of the IPO.
The price per share was OR0.225, revised
down from the original OR0.259.
Subscription ran for nearly seven weeks due
to a two-week extension when pricing was
revised.
Trading began on September 5, and the
free-float is 40%. The shares offered were all
secondary.
EFG Hermes was sole bookrunner.
The generating company embarked on
the IPO to comply with Omani regulations
geared towards increasing international
investment in infrastructure projects in the
country. The company operates two power
generation plants and has a 15-year power
purchase agreement with Oman Power and
Water Procurement, the sole buyer of power
and water in the sultanate.SWITZERLAND
SIG TARGETS €1bn IN SIX FLOATPre-marketing has begun for a SFr1.13bn-
plus (US$1.16bn) SIX Swiss Exchange float of
packaging business SIG COMBIBLOC GROUP with
expectations of pricing around the end of
the month.
SIG is one of two dominant players in the
aseptic (or free from contamination) carton
packaging for foods and beverages sector,
with unlisted Tetra Pak the other main
business. The packaging process allows
beverages and liquid food to last for up to 12
months without the need for refrigeration
or preservatives.
SIG’s customers are food and beverage
companies, with SIG providing a filling
machine at the customers’ facilities which
then requires SIG’s proprietary sleeves and
closures. The company said that as of June
30, there were approximately 1,150 SIG
filling machines in over 60 countries,requiring approximately 35bn sleeves
during the previous 12 months.
SIG has outlined a primary fundraise of
€1bn, or SFr1.13bn, which will be
principally used to deleverage to 3.0-3.25
times net debt/Ebitda. There will be
secondary selling from Canadian private
equity group Onex, which bought SIG in
2015 from New Zealand billionaire Graeme
Hart in a deal valued at €3.75bn.
The secondary tranche is not expected to
be as large as the primary, and Onex will not
cut its stake below 50% post-money. There
will also be a 15% greenshoe.
The key listed peers are Huhtamaki in
Finland, Dublin-based Smurfit Kappa and DS
Smith of the UK.
A banker involved in the float said that,
unlike with much of the Swiss IPO issuance
this year, SIG is a fairly well known brand
domestically.
A standard timetable would involve the
launch of bookbuilding in the week
beginning September 17 and pricing around
September 28.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse
and Goldman Sachs are joint global
coordinators and joint bookrunners with
Barclays, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and UBS.
UniCredit and Vontobel are co-lead managers.
Rothschild is advising SIG.UK
GREEN MAN GAMING LAUNCHES
AIM FLOATOnline games retailer GREEN MAN GAMING has
launched an AIM IPO to raise funds for
expansion.
The company has not spelled out how
much it will raise but aims to have a free-
float considerably above 25%. Proceeds will
go towards expansion in existing markets of
the UK, US and Europe and entry into new
markets such as China, India and the Middle
East.
The lack of capital in the business means
that only £3.97m was spent on marketing
over the past three years, equivalent to 3.5%
of net revenues over the period. Fundraising
in the IPO will allow for greater marketing
spending and the IPO is also intended to
raise the company’s profile.
The listing is expected by the end of the
September.
Founded in 2009, Green Man Gaming has
a catalogue of more than 6,600 games,
which it provides to buyers as digital
downloads. Green Man Gaming has
relationships with 677 publishers and has
approximately 1m active customers, which
the company defined as having spent more
than £1 over the previous 24 months.88 International Financing Review September 8 201810 Equities and SE 2250 p81-98.indd 88 07/09/2018 20:19:32