EQUITA assisted Italian Design Brands
Milan, May 18th, 2023 – Italian Design Brands (“IDB”) – the Italian hub of high-quality furniture and design – debuts on Euronext Milan after having successfully completed its IPO process.
The company had a strong opening on its first day of trading and closed at €11.20 (+3% vs the IPO price), leading to a market capitalization above €300 million.
During the pre-listing phases, the company met - with a tailored and extensive marketing plan - over 35 Italian and international investors and industry experts, including several “unconventional” market participants such as family offices.
The offering comprised several innovative features allowing for maximum deal certainty in an extremely challenging IPO market environment, by enhancing transaction momentum, valuation discipline, quality of demand and allocations and paving the way to a positive aftermarket performance.
Among such innovations, the involvement of a cornerstone investor had a key role in the process: in early May, right after the publication of the intention to float of IDB, Tamburi Investment Partners (TIP) agreed to acquire from Investindesign - former controlling shareholder of IDB - a 50.7% stake for a consideration of €72m. This led to an implied pre-money equity value of €220 million.
The commitment of a significant investor like TIP turned the process into a fixed-price IPO at €10.88 per share and a 100% primary transaction, with an offering based on newly issued shared only.
The transaction resulted in strong long only and family office demand, over-subscribed and heavily skewed towards domestic and high-quality investors, despite the challenging global IPO landscape.
The offering allowed the company to raise approximately €70 million (€80+ million including the greenshoe option) to finance future investments in organic growth initiatives and external growth opportunities.
EQUITA acted as Joint Global Coordinator, Joint Bookrunner and Listing Agent, with the Investment Banking and the Global Markets teams fully dedicated to the success of the deal. The IPO of IDB further underscores EQUITA leading ECM franchise in Italy, with this being the 4th IPO successfully priced by the team year-to-date amid challenging market conditions (previous IPOs were Gentili Mosconi, Ecomembrane and Lottomatica).
