Green Man Gaming does business in 195
countries, with four language websites
using 16 currencies.
Revenues in 2017 were £47.5m, a level
achieved with only £6.7m of external
investment since starting operations in
2009.
The company estimates it has just 0.9%
market share of global digital gamer
accounts, with the digital video game
industry estimated to be worth £30.4bn, and
forecast to grow 32% to £40.1bn by 2020.
Gaming companies coming to market in
Europe have largely been restricted to
games developers in recent years, including
F1 games developer Codemasters and
Team17 Group, maker of Worms and Alien
Breed, which both floated on AIM this year.
Sumo Group, which provides creative and
development services to video games and
entertainment businesses, also joined AIM
at the beginning of the year. Rovio, the
Finnish maker of Angry Birds, floated in
2017 and Sweden’s Paradox in 2016.
Numis is sole bookrunner for Green Man
Gaming.FUNDSMITH TO FLOAT ‘MINI-ME’
SMITHSON INVESTMENT FUNDInvestment firm Fundsmith, founded by city
veteran Terry Smith, is planning to raise
£250m through listing SMITHSON INVESTMENT
FUND on the London Stock Exchange.
In an unusual move, Fundsmith will
absorb the costs associated with Smithson’s
launch, so the net asset value on day one is
the same as the £10 per share paid.
Fundsmith is also rejecting the typical
NAV management fee structure in favour of
a 0.9% annual fee based on the market
capitalisation, which the company says will
align the interests of the investment
manager with shareholders.
Smith said he will invest £25m in the new
company at launch, while fellow Fundsmith
partners and employees will top that up to
£30m.
The deal will involve a placing, an offer
for subscription and an intermediaries offer,
and a 12-month placing programme will be
launched alongside the listing.
Smithson is intended to be a mini
version of its parent company, investing in
companies that fall below the market cap
threshold of Fundsmith’s portfolio. It will
be managed by Fundsmith, and will have a
global focus on companies with market
caps between £500m and £15bn.
The average market cap of the
companies Fundsmith invests in is
£103.8bn and it is predominantly focused
on the US, followed by the UK and Spain.
Paypal, Amadeus and Facebook are among
its top 10 holdings.Simon Barnard and Will Morgan joined
Fundsmith from Goldman Sachs last year to
research the opportunity of applying
Fundsmith’s investment strategy to smaller
companies and will manage the fund.
Although Goldman helped research for
the new fund, Investec is the sole bookrunner
on the Smithson launch.
Smith founded Fundsmith in 2010; it
manages over £18bn. Its total returns are
19.7%, annualised to August 31.
In its intention to float, the company said
fewer analysts cover SMEs, potentially
creating opportunities to leverage
discrepancies between share prices and
valuations.BC PARTNERS BIDS FAREWELL TO SABREThe final instalment of BC Partners’ three-
step exit from SABRE INSURANCE GROUP took
place on Tuesday evening, with Barclays
running the sale of the private equity firm’s
remaining stake in the company through an
accelerated bookbuild that raised £116.4m
in total.
Director Angus Ball also sold shares in the
wholly secondary bookbuild and retains a
1.8% stake. The bulky placing saw
approximately 17.9% of the company’s share
capital sold.
Books were covered within the hour for
the total 44.75m shares up for grabs, and
pricing came at 260p per share,
representing a 5.1% discount to Tuesday’s
close of 274p. Pricing was at the bottom of
260p–270p guidance at launch. The deal,
which was not wall-crossed, was done and
dusted by 6:45pm, after being launched at
4:50pm.
As a clean-up trade the sale helped to
attract long-only investors, predominantly
from the UK but also the US.
The book was highly concentrated, with
two-thirds of the shares going to the top 10
orders, and 85% to the top 20. There were
around 50 lines in the book overall.
Sabre’s share price was 269p by midday in
London on Friday.
The insurance group has performed well
since its flotation on the LSE in December
2017, with the IPO, which included selling
by BC Partners, priced at 230p per share,
and the previous ABB by BC in May priced at
248p.
Barclays has been bookrunner on all three
sales by BC Partners and Evercore again
advised the seller.ELLIOTT HAPPY WITH CHARTER COURT
SALE THIS TIMEThere was no wall-crossing ahead of
Wednesday night’s sale of 15m shares in
mortgage lender CHARTER COURT FINANCIALSERVICES GROUP on behalf of fund manager
Elliott Associates, which marked the second
attempt to sell the shares in a matter of
weeks.
Sole bookrunner Barclays was charged
with selling the same number of shares for
Elliott in mid-July, but the seller balked at
the quality of the book of demand and the
pricing that was possible.
Helpfully, Charter Court stock has risen
since, closing on Wednesday at 361p
compared with a close prior to the aborted
sale of 347.15p.
Despite the lack of a wall-cross, Barclays
launched the latest sale with guidance of
335p-345p per share, a 4.4%-7.2% discount.
“This was a well-anticipated block and we
had a pretty good read on a number of
investors,” said a banker involved in the
trade.
The deal was covered after half an hour,
with investors guided at around 6pm in
London to pricing of 340p, a 5.8% discount to
the close. Books closed at approximately
6:45pm.
A multiple-times covered book was
heavily concentrated, with the top 10
accounts taking two-thirds of the deal and
the top 20 approximately 85%.
This is the second accelerated
bookbuild in Charter Court since the
£260m IPO in September 2017. In May
Barclays and Credit Suisse placed 10% of
the company in a £70.5m sale on behalf of
Elliott. Pricing for that sale was 295p, up
from 230p at the IPO, which was led by
Barclays and RBC.
Charter Court shares opened at 355.20p
on Thursday morning and closed at 351.40p.TUFTON TO TOP UP CASH PILETUFTON OCEANIC ASSETS, a UK-listed fund
investing in second-hand commercial sea-
going vessels, is to raise further capital after
deploying approximately 85% of the
US$91m proceeds raised in its late 2017 IPO.
Tufton said that the remaining cash is
expected to be fully committed before or
shortly after any new fundraising is
completed.
The investment manager has identified a
pipeline of vessels and intends to raise
capital through an issuance of shares as part
of a 12-month placing programme. N+1
Singer, a placing agent in the IPO, is attached.FORESIGHT BACK FOR MORE FUNDSFORESIGHT SOLAR FUND is seeking authority
from its shareholders to carry out further
funding without pre-emption rights as it
considers buying 10 UK power assets,
reducing its debt load and making
acquisitions.International Financing Review September 8 2018 89EQUITIES EMEA
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