Coty Inc (NYSE:COTY)’s existing shareholders raised $1 billion in a public offering. The fragrance maker sold 57.1 million shares in the offering for $17.50 each, pricing them at the midpoint of the proposed range of $16.50 to $18.50 apiece. Listed on the New York Stock Exchange, the stock will start trading today under the ticker COTY.
Analysts said the IPO was attractive enough to fetch the price within the expected range. The fragrance maker’s owners, the Reimanns family, will continue to maintain control over the company. They will have 10 votes per share, compared to just one vote for new shareholders. The IPO could raise as much as $1.22 billion, considering the sale of extra shares to underwriters, says Matt Jarzemsky of the Wall Street Journal.
Owners To Maintain 70% of Equity
The offering values Coty Inc (NYSE:COTY) at $8.6 billion including debts. That’s 11 times its EBITDA for 12 months through March 31. Joh. A. Benckiser GmbH or JAB, the Luxembourg-based investment arm of the Reimanns family, will retain about 70 percent of the company’s equity holding and 85 percent of the voting stake, according to the regulatory filings. After the IPO, Joh. A. Benckiser GmbH and two other Coty owners, Rhone Capital and Berkshire Partners LLC (which has no relation to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc.), will control about 97.7 percent of the voting rights.
Coty Going Through Tumultuous Phase
In FY2012, more than 50 percent of the company’s $4.61 billion revenues came from perfumes. Color cosmetics contributed to 31 percent of the total revenues while skin and body care amounted to 16 percent of total sales. Coty Inc (NYSE:COTY) was founded by Corsican-born Francois Coty in 1904 in Paris. It owns popular fragrance brands like OPI, Calvin Klein, and Davidoff, and has a licensing agreement to sell the Adidas brand of skin care products.
The company is going through a challenging phase. A large part of its total revenues come from Europe, which is in deep recession. Some of the Coty Inc (NYSE:COTY) recent acquisitions like TJoy Holdings Ltd haven’t proven as beneficial as the company had expected. Revenues from Europe, the Middle East and Africa declined 3.1 percent for the nine months ending March 31.
Coty Inc (NYSE:COTY) is now betting on emerging markets to boost sales. It plans to generate 33 percent of its revenues from emerging countries within five years, compared to 23 percent in 2012.
Coty Inc (NYSE:COTY) shares were down 1.09 percent to $17.31 at 11:01 AM EDT.
