Business
Princes Group valued at £1.16bn as food firm launches London float
Tinned tuna maker Princes Group has kicked off its major London stock market float with a £1.16 billion valuation.
The almost 150-year-old firm, which is best known for its Princes Tuna and Napolina brands, will therefore be valued at the bottom end of a £1.16 billion to £1.24 billion target range set out last week.
Princes said conditional dealings being launched on Friday would see shares in the business priced at 475p per share.
The company, which has headquarters in Liverpool’s landmark Liver Building, was bought last year by Italian food firm Newlat, which will keep an investment in the business.
The float is the latest in a fresh flurry of activity for the London Stock Exchange after a dearth of listings in recent years.
It comes only a day after small business lender Shawbrook Group launched its initial public offering (IPO) at a £1.92 billion valuation.
It then saw shares rise by around 8% in its first day of trading.
Meanwhile, The Beauty Tech Group – which owns beauty gadget brands CurrentBody, ZIIP Beauty and Tria Laser – floated with a valuation of around £300 million earlier this month.
Princes, which also owns Crisp N Dry and licenses brands such as Branston, said it will raise around £400 million through its listing.
The food firm said the cash injection will help support the company to grow further through acquisition deals.
Simon Harrison, chief executive of Princes Group, said: “Today marks a defining moment in Princes Group’s journey as we proudly begin our chapter as a publicly listed company.
“Our listing on the London Stock Exchange reflects not only our heritage but also our ambition for future growth.
“As we look ahead, we remain focused on expanding our international footprint, deepening our category leadership, and delivering sustainable, long-term value for all our stakeholders.”
Business and Trade Secretary Peter Kyle said: “The London Stock Exchange is a renowned global trading hub and the Princes Group is a great British success story.
“The firm’s decision to list is not only a huge vote of confidence in this Government’s reforms to capital markets but in British business.”
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Business
Versant stock jumps 10% after company’s Q1 report shows bright spots in licensing, platforms
Versant Media Group on Thursday unveiled results for its most recent quarter — its first as a stand-alone company after separating from Comcast’s NBCUniversal and beginning to trade on the Nasdaq earlier this year.
The report revealed continued pressure in the traditional pay TV bundle but highlighted growth in digital platform and licensing businesses.
Versant stock rose roughly 10% in early trading.
Linear distribution revenue for its pay TV networks — which include CNBC, MS NOW and the Golf Channel as well as USA, E!, Syfy and Oxygen — was down roughly 7% during the period to $1.01 billion. The company said that was due to subscriber declines and partially offset by rate increases.
Advertising revenue for the first quarter fell 5% to $368 million, which was considered an improvement from the same period last year when it posted a 12% decline.
Revenue from content licensing, however, rose 113.5% to $121 million, due largely to the licensing of the longtime reality TV series hit “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” and other related content to Disney’s Hulu.
Revenue from Versant’s platforms business, which includes Fandango, GolfNow and some of the already launched direct-to-consumer units, was up 9.5% to $192 million.
CEO Mark Lazarus said on Thursday’s earnings call with investors that the company aims to “build scale and expand our audiences” in direct-to-consumer.
“Yes, we hope that comes with a large base of subscribers, and we’ll gauge ourselves as [to] how do revenues look across all of our various forms of distributing content,” he said.
Lazarus added that the company is working to make sure it grows “revenue diversification within each of our verticals.”
More than 80% of Versant’s revenue comes from the pay TV business. However, executives have told Wall Street that it aims to eventually rebalance its revenue mix so that 50% is derived from its digital, platform, subscription, ad-supported and transactional businesses.
Overall revenue for the period ended March 31 was down about 1% compared with the same quarter last year to $1.69 billion. Wall Street analysts polled by LSEG had expected revenue of $1.62 billion.
Net income attributable to Versant decreased 22% to $286 million, or $1.99 per share, for the quarter, which the company said was due to lower revenue, higher public company costs and interest expense following the spinout from Comcast. This was partially offset by lower taxes during the quarter, it said.
Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization fell 7% from the same period last year to $704 million.
When compared with stand-alone adjusted EBITDA, a metric to more directly compare performance of the pre-spin portfolio companies to current results, adjusted EBITDA was up about 5%, Versant said. That was due to lower entertainment programming expenses and reduced selling, general and administrative costs, which offset revenue declines.
Growth avenues
Versant has consistently touted its strength in sports and news. On Thursday the company highlighted viewership increases for CNBC and MS NOW as well as continued momentum for the Golf Channel and other live sports and events on its networks.
The company has been exploring growth through mergers and acquisitions, and obtaining more sports rights. On Thursday, Lazarus said Versant has been “looking in a variety of areas” when it comes to potential deals.
CFO and COO Anand Kini added during Thursday’s call that while exploring M&A remains a part of Versant’s strategy, the company is also looking to maintain a healthy balance sheet and is focused on organic growth within its businesses.
“Our platforms revenue growth this quarter demonstrates that was really organic growth in GolfNow and Fandango,” Kini said. “So we’re going to look when there’s opportunities that are inorganic, [but] they have a very high threshold even as they fit within those markets and those strategies.”
The company also continued on its earlier pledge of returning capital to its shareholders, mainly due to its light debt load.
The company on Thursday declared a quarterly cash dividend for the second quarter in a row, each time at 37.5 cents per share. The new dividend is payable on July 22 to shareholders of record as of the close of business on July 1.
Versant also announced that it expects to enter into a $100 million accelerated share repurchase agreement, beginning Friday, which it anticipates completing during the second quarter. Versant repurchased nearly 2.7 million shares of Class A common stock during the first quarter, with a remaining authorization of roughly $900 million as of March 31, it said.
Disclosure: Versant is the parent company of CNBC.
Business
Tate & Lyle in talks over £2.7bn takeover tilt from US rival
Sweetener and ingredients firm Tate & Lyle has revealed talks over a possible £2.7 billion takeover by US rival Ingredion Incorporated in the latest swoop on a UK company.
London-listed Tate & Lyle said it had received an approach from Illinois-based Ingredion worth 615p per share in cash, which follows a number of earlier proposals.
Tate and Ingredion are now in discussions, but Tate stressed there was no certainty an offer will be made.
Ingredion has until 5pm on June 11 to make a firm offer or walk away under Takeover Panel rules.
It comes amid a spate of approaches for British firms by overseas suitors, with laboratory testing company Intertek earlier this week giving its backing to a £9.4 billion proposal from Swedish firm EQT.
Shares in Tate & Lyle soared by over 50% in afternoon trading on Thursday.
But the takeover tilt comes after shares have come under pressure over the past year, with Tate warning over full-year profits last October and revealing a 10% drop in first half profits in November.
Tate & Lyle last year bought food and drink ingredients business CP Kelco in a deal worth around £1.4 billion.
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