MYOB Shares To Float Again

MYOB lodged its IPO Prospectus with ASIC today. The Accounting Software company is seeking to raise over $800 million in the share offer and at the planned offer price of $3 - $4, would have a market capitalization of around $2.5 billion.

According to the company's announcement to the ASX today, the proceeds will go to paying down debt and meeting the costs of the initial public offering. The current owners - Bain Capital - will hold onto their stake in the company and will hold 57% of MYOB shares after a successful listing.

MYOB was originally listed on the ASX back in 2000 before being taken private by private equity firm Archer Capital back in 2009. Since then the business has been sold onto Bain Capital who are now looking to float the shares once again.

The MYOB share offer will be open to both retail and institutional investors.
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National Storage REIT Float

Another participant in the feeding frenzy that is the IPO market right now is National Storage REIT.

An investment in this float is probably more for those interested in income via distributions rather than the excitement of stag profits on the opening day of trading. This business looks like the more boring but stable kind.

According to the prospectus, the REIT "will be the first independent, internally managed and fully-integrated owner and operator of self-storage centres listed on the ASX".

The group currently owns or operates 62 self-storage centers across Australia.

The offer is for 126.3 million stapled securities at a price of 98 cents each.

2011 Share Floats - What Will 2011 Hold For Investors In IPOs?

With the year now well underway, it's time to turn our attention to what the IPO market might throw our way in 2011. In terms of the number of new issues, last year was an improvement on 2009. Will 2011 be a better year again for investors in Australian share floats?

2010 saw 96 new listings worth a total of $7.5 billion. The monster float of the year was QR National. And despite some investor doubt in the run-up to the QRN share offer, the share price has actually performed fairly well. Shares are trading at $2.80 as I write this, which is a reasonable premium to the $2.45 paid by retail investors. Of course such short term price movement is likely to be driven more by sentiment than by fundamentals. The real test for QR National will be the next couple of years operating results.

QRN - QR National Share Offer Document Now Available

Finally the big day for prospective QR National investors has arrived. The offer document has been released and now we get a chance to see what the 'big' fuss has all been about (don't tell me you haven't seen the ads). What follows are some of the highlights from the QR National prospectus.

How Much?

The indicative price range is between $2.50 and $3.00 per share with the final price paid by institutions (fund managers and the like) to be set by way of an institutional book build (kind of like an auction for the big boys). Retail investors will pay 10 cents per share less than the institutions up to a price of $2.80. I guess that means we will pay somewhere between $2.40 and $2.80 per share.

QR National Share Offer

Is it worth buying shares in the QR National float?

That is the $6.5 billion question. Unfortunately, we're all going to have to wait a little longer to find out. Until October 10 to be exact. That's when the prospectus is due to be released.

Although details of the QR share offer are still sketchy, most main-stream media are predicting a market capitalization once the listing takes place to be around 6.5 billion dollars, although the Queensland Government may retain between 25% and 40% ownership. If you do the maths, that's still a sizeable opportunity for Australian investors. In fact this will be the largest float this year and the second largest in Australian history.

Pre-Registration Now Open For QR National Shares

2010 Share Market Floats - What Can Investors Look Forward To?

What will 2010 deliver to Australian stock market investors when it comes to new share floats? Hopefully, the worst of the global financial crisis is now behind us. After a fairly slow year in terms of the number and size of Initial Public Offerings, companies which had temporarily put their share float plans on the back burner may now be taking a second look at the market.

I think one of the reasons that 2009 was such a bad year for new share floats was the amount of competition for investment dollars. Investors could snap up a bargain pretty much anywhere they cared to look in the first half of 2009 (provided they were looking - some investors were too scared to go anywhere near the stock market given the massive falls an 2008, which continued into the early part of 2009).

Kathmandu IPO - Kathmandu Shares Set To Float

Hot on the heels of the initial public offering of Myer shares comes the Kathmandu float. It seems that the present owners of the outdoor goods and clothing retailer have judged that now might be a good time to sell down their stake given the recent strength in Australian shares and the high levels of demand being reported for Myer shares.

The Kathmandu prospectus is available from the kathmanduholdings.com website. The retail offer is set to open next Tuesday and close at COB on 6 November. The share offer is expected to raise between $278M and $375M through the sale of between 167 and 197 million shares at a price of $1.65 to $1.90. The proceeds of the offer will be used to pay down debt, fund the cost of the offer with the balance going to the present owners of the company.

Kathmandu was bought from founder Jan Cameron by Goldman Sachs JBWere and Quadrant Private Equity in 2006 and they are now looking at taking some money off the table. It has been reported that they may retain a stake of up to 15% in the listed entity but I suspect that will depend upon demand.

In order to buy shares in the offer you need to purchase through a broker who has received an allocation. There is some stock available to employees with the rest being sold in an institutional offer.

Kathmandu shares will be listed on both the Australian and New Zealand stock exchanges. The retailer operates 84 stores in Australia, New Zealand and the UK and is looking to open another 18 stores.

Myer Prospectus Released

Here is the latest update on the initial public offering of Myer shares.

Today the prospectus was made available for download on the Myer website. I have downloaded it and had a quick scan through.

One thing that struck me is that there is no application form. As far as I can tell, retail investors have 3 options to invest in the float:

• as a staff member of Myer;
• as a member of the loyalty card program; or
• through an allocation from a stock broker.

If you don't fall into one of these categories, the prospectus says that you will be eligible if you're a member of Myer One loyalty card program on 23 October 2009. I guess that means you still have time to become a member.

The offer will be priced between $3.90 and $4.90 per share with the final price to be set upon completion of the institutional offer.

It seems that demand will probably be strong as I read in The Age today that 140,000 investors have pre-registered their interest in the share offer.

Myer Float - How To Buy Shares In The Myer IPO

Since my post yesterday on the IPO of Myer shares, I've had a couple of questions about how investors can get access to the float. As I mentioned yesterday, the strong brand name will probably attract lots of retail investors to the float and I guess people are worried about missing out.

According to the offer website, as long as you become a Myer One member by 5:00 pm on Friday 25 September, you will be eligible to preregister and have your prospectus mailed to you along with a personalized application form.

But I also read in the FAQ that you will not receive any priority by preregistering.

"If you apply for shares under the Myer Share Offer, you will be treated the same whether or not you have pre-registered."

So there appears to be no reason to panic just yet. Although there has been speculation that preferential treatment would be given to loyalty card holders, the information in the FAQ does seem to contradict this.

If you're worried about missing out, maybe the safest bet is to join up to the loyalty card program before Friday. That way you'll be covered if investors who preregister their interest in the IPO do receive preferential treatment in the Myer float.

Myer Shares Set To Float

It looks like Myer shares will once again be available on the Australian stock market. The Myer IPO (Initial Public Offering) could well be wrapped up by the end of the year.

According to the www.mypieceofmyer.com.au website, the group "currently intends to lodge a prospectus with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission for the offering of shares in Myer Holdings Limited on or about 28 September 2009".

With the ASX indices racing ahead over the past few months, it may well be an opportune time for the float, providing the Aussie sharemarket doesn't fall over in the next month or two. We've managed to get through the 1st anniversary of the GFC, but October has been a diabolical month for investors in years gone by - although not so much in recent years.

Pre-registration for the Myer float is only available to the company's staff and for Myer One loyalty card members.

The TPG (Texas Pacific Group) led private equity consortium took the iconic retailer private just over 3 years ago. Since then they have managed to increase profits and (not surprisingly) management say that recent trading has been strong.

The interesting thing for me will be the structure of the new listed entity's balance sheet - or more specifically, how much debt it carries. The modus operandi in most private equity deals is the use a lot of leverage (debt) in the buyout. Sometimes when the shares are floated they still carry a significant level of debt. Repco is one of those situations which comes to mind. The cyclic nature of retailing along with excessive debt can be a risky combination.

I suspect that the issue will still be popular though. It is a well known brand which along with some heavy marketing aimed at retail investors should ensure the Myer share float is successful.

Australian Stock Market Floats For August

There is a real theme to the upcoming Australian Stock Market Floats for August 2008. You guessed it - small resources stocks. Although there are only a handful of stocks due to list on the ASX next month, I thought it would still be worth running my eye over them.

Below is the meager list of upcoming Australian Stock Market IPO's.

RVE - Riviera Resources Limited (August 1)
EMG - Emergent Resources Limited (August 7)
IVA - Ivanhoe Australia Limited (August 7)
AGN - Australian Gemstone House Limited (August 14)
OHZ - Opal Horizon Limited (August 15)
MET - Mt Isa Metals Limited (August 22)

Riviera Resources Limited is trying to raise $2,500,000 through the issue of twelve and a half million shares at twenty cents each. The company plans to extend on the exploration work already done on the Three Sisters Project in Queensland with a view to eventually mining any gold or other base metals discovered.

Emergent Resources Limited want to raise $4,000,000 at twenty cents per share. Emergent Resources are looking for iron, copper, lead, zinc, gold, nickel and uranium as part of the Beyondie Iron Project in Western Australia.

Ivanhoe Australia Limited is much more ambitious. It's looking for $125 million at $2.00 per share. Ivanhoe is seeking to explore and develop copper, gold and uranium deposits starting with its "highly prospective" Cloncurry Project.

Here's something a little different. Australian Gemstone House Limited is looking for opals and sapphires. To undertake this task Australian Gemstone House will need $30 million at $1.00 per share.

Not to be outdone, Opal Horizon Limited is also looking for opals. Opal Horizon not only wants to look for opals, it also wants to be involved in the "mining, purchasing, processing, wholesaling and marketing" of opals. To that end, it is raising $6 million at $0.25 per share.

And the last cab of the rank is Mt Isa Metals Limited. They'll be looking for mineral deposits to develop in central and North-West Queensland. For this task, they're seeking $7 million at twenty cents per share.

I haven't looked at any of these companies in detail yet so if you're interested make sure you do your own homework - as you should with any Australian Stock Market float. You should not consider any of the above to be recommendations.