Stork 'postpones' private placement, blames market conditions

Thursday 19 July 2012

Engineering group Stork is 'postponing' the private placement of shares totalling €315m citing 'difficult market conditions'.

The secondary placement was announced in the spring and according to the Financieele Dagblad, it is extremely unusual for a private placement to fail after being publicly announced. The money was destined for the group's Technical Services division.

Stork said in a statement it 'appreciates the significant response and interest it has received from potential investors for the notes in both Europe and the US'.

However, 'due to the achievable terms in the current market, Stork has decided to postpone the offering.'

IPO

This is the second blow to Stork this month, the paper points out. Earlier, Stork's chief executive Sjoerd Vollebregt told the FD the group's possible plans for a stock exchange listing could be thwarted because parliament no longer backs buying the JSF jet fighter.

In particular, the Fokker Technologies division is likely to be hit, Vollebregt said.

The paper says investors may have been reluctant to sign up for the private placement because of the company's complicated corporate structure and concerns that Technical Services is not sufficiently protected against possible losses at Fokker.

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