On 28 April, Russian Sistema got the Segezha Group listed on the Moscow stock exchange by issuing of new shares. According to a statement issued by Sistema, 3.75bn shares - or 31.4% of the share capital - have been sold under ticker SGZH at a price of RUB8.00 per share. The launch on the stock exchange and the associated capital inflow of RUB30bn (equivalent to US$400m) are intended to be used for financing of Segezha’s further expansion as well as reduction of the leverage. Following completion of the initial public offering (IPO), Sistema, at a market capitalisation of RUB125.5bn and a share of 73.7%, will remain majority shareholder of the Segezha Group. Based on the assumption that the Renaissance Capital financial institute does not exercise the right it has been granted to purchase up to 15% of the newly issued shares, the free float will amount to 23.9%. The oversubscription option can be exercised until 27 May. In addition to Renaissance Capital, banks J.P. Morgan, UBS, VTB Capital, BofA Securities, Gazprombank and Alfa Capital Markets acted as joint book-running managers in the IPO.
In 2017 Sistema already had planned to list the Segezha Group on the stock exchange via an IPO in 2019, in 2018 these plans were postponed to 2020. Michail Schamulin, president of the Segezha Group, explained at the time that the intention was to implement the IPO as soon as the group achieved an EBITDA of over RUB10bn. In 2018 and 2019, the EBITDA had amounted to RUB13.2bn and RUB14.0bn respectively.
