In what is seen as the first significant biotechnology flotation since the market downturn in the spring, Swedish company Biovitrum has announced a listing on the Stockholm Stock Exchange, with an initial public offering of 6.7 million shares. This equates to 15% of shares and votes outstanding in the privately-held group. The sale of the shares will be from existing investors, including Nordic Capital and MPM Capital.
Biovitrum has set a timetable of September 4 to 11 for institutional book-building, with the announcement of an offering price on September 15. Meantime, the UK's Financial Times speculates that this will be at 105 Swedish kronor per share and notes that, as the firm will not be raising any new money, it will have a market capitalization of around 5.0 billion kronor ($691.0 million). The newspaper also suggests that Biovitrum's move could be a signal that others in the biotechnology sector may now revive shelved IPO plans.
The company, which was spun-out from Pharmacia in 2001, reported total turnover for the first six months of 2006 of 708.0 million kronor, compared with 937.0 million kronor for the whole of 2005. The largest part of this comes from its ReFacto manufacturing deal with US drug major Wyeth, which produced revenues of 339.0 million kronor for the first half of this year. Apart from its contract manufacturing, Biovitrum carries out contract development and focuses on drugs for the treatment of obesity, diabetes, inflammation and blood diseases, as well as a number of defined niche indications.
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