China’s Silk Road Fund is selling its 9% stake in Italian premium tyre maker Pirelli through a so-called accelerated book building (ABB) procedure, a bookrunner said on Wednesday.
The deal comes after the Italian government intervened last year to limit the influence of Pirelli’s largest shareholder, the Chinese state-owned conglomerate Sinochem Group, to preserve national interest.
The price guidance for the sale of Silk Road Fund’s shares in Pirelli was set at 5.69 euros each, with a 8.1% discount compared with their market price, according to the bookrunner. That values the entire stake around 513 million euros ($554 million).
Milan-listed Pirelli shares closed up 0.3% on Wednesday at 6.19 euros, giving the company a market capitalisation of around 6.2 billion euros.
An ABB is a form of offering, with banks acting as bookrunners, in which shares are offered during a small time window, generally lasting between 24 hours to 48 hours.
With its 37% stake, Sinochem remains Pirelli’s largest investor. It has a governance agreement with Camfin, the vehicle of Italian businessman Marco Tronchetti Provera, who has led Pirelli since 1992 and is now its executive vice chairman.
Camfin, which holds a 20.6% stake, is Pirelli’s second largest shareholder.
($1 = 0.9257 euro)
Reuters