Reuters: Hot Stocks: UPDATE 1-Evonik shares gain in market debut

Reuters: Hot Stocks Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world's media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

UPDATE 1-Evonik shares gain in market debut Apr 25th 2013, 11:30 Thu Apr 25, 2013 7:30am EDT * Shares up 2.4 pct on placing price * CEO says aims for MDax inclusion in September * CEO expects liquidity in Evonik shares to increase soon * Share price values firm at 15.4 bln euros (Adds comments by CEO, background on struggle to go public) FRANKFURT, April 25 (Reuters) - Shares in German speciality chemicals and plastics maker Evonik rose in their stock market debut on Thursday following a series of private placings. By 1050 GMT the shares were trading at 32.96 euros, up 2.4 percent on the price of the placing on Wednesday, when shares amounting to a 2.5 percent stake in the company were sold via an accelerated bookbuilding process and valuing the group at 15.4 billion euros ($20 billion). Unlike a normal share flotation Evonik's sale was managed as a so-called "cold listing", whereby the owners had already sold 12 percent of the shares to institutional investors in two private placings over the last two months, and then sold a further 2.5 percent on Wednesday. The owners, the RAG foundation which is responsible for the liabilities of Germany's former coalmining industry, and private equity investor CVC, chose the unusual procedure after several previous attempts at an IPO failed. However, Germany's second-biggest chemicals maker behind BASF, said it was now in the frame to be included in Germany's midcap index. "If everything goes according to plan, we will be in the MDax in September," Evonik's chief executive Klaus Engel said after ringing the bell at the appearance of the first Evonik share price quote on the Frankfurt market's screens. Evonik's 14.5 percent free-float of readily tradeable shares is worth roughly 2.2 billion euros, and companies with a free float market capitalisation of over 1 billion euros usually qualify for the MDax index, while a 5 billion euro value is needed for inclusion in the Dax index. Evonik's free float may increase further as CVC has said in the past that it will eventually sell more shares. No lock-up period has been set. "We expect to see more liquidity in the stock in the coming months," Engel said. In the first hours of trading, Evonik's shares outperformed the Stoxx 600 Europe chemicals sector index which was up 0.1 percent. However, weaker demand in important customer markets such as automotive, electronics and construction have dimmed European chemical makers' earnings prospects this year. Diversified healthcare group Bayer's on Thursday lowered forecasts for its plastics and chemicals unit. Investment banks Mainfirst and Deutsche Bank organised the listing. ($1 = 0.7695 euros) (Reporting by Arno Schuetze, Alexander Hübner and Ludwig Burger; Editing by Greg Mahlich) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions