Warburg Pincus and Cinven have launched an offer to sell their remaining shares in Dutch cableco Ziggo just days after the former announced it had acquired a strategic stake in Poland’s fourth-largest cableco.
The private equity firms and co-investors…
Warburg Pincus and Cinven have launched an offer to sell their remaining shares in Dutch cableco Ziggo just days after the former announced it had acquired a strategic stake in Poland’s fourth-largest cableco.
The private equity firms and co-investors are offering 27 million of its shares in an accelerated bookbuild, with the potential to include an extra 7.2 million shares.
“[A]ssuming full exercise of the upsize option, Cinven, Warburg Pincus and their co-investors will no longer hold Ziggo shares,” the cableco said.
At the time of writing, Ziggo’s shares were trading at €25.94 on the NYSE Euronext in Amsterdam, valuing the 34.2 million shares (equal to an approximate 17%) at a total €887.15m (US$1.15bn).
Ziggo was created in 2008 after Warburg and Cinven acquired and merged the Netherland’s second, third and fourth-largest cablecos between 2005 and 2007. Ziggo is now the nation’s largest cableco with a network that passes about 56% of Dutch households.
New York-based Warburg and UK-based Cinven have gradually reduced their stake in Ziggo since it completed its IPO in March 2012. The last transaction, in March this year, saw them reduce their shareholding from 37.1% to 17.1%. UK-based Barclays, which underwrote the transaction, was left with a 14.2% stake after it failed to generate enough interest from investors but went on to sell a 12.65% stake to US-based cable giant Liberty Global.
Warburg announced on Tuesday that it had acquired a strategic stake in Polish cableco Inea and committed to providing additional funding for growth and consolidation. The financial details of the transaction were not disclosed, however Inea said it believes it marks the largest private equity investment in Poland this year.
In its own statement, Inea said Warburg’s investment will help it “to consolidate the highly-fragmented local cable market”.
Warburg claims to have invested more than US$13.5bn in more than 270 TMT companies over the past 25 years.
Update – entire stake sold
Cinven and Warburg Pincus did successfully sell their entire stake in Ziggo, the company announced early afternoon today. The 34 million shares sold for €25.75 per share, giving the entire stake a value of about €875.5m.
