Last quarter of 2019 has brought several news from the stock exchange in the yachting industry. One of the leading Italian yacht builders, Sanlorenzo, has gone public on the Borsa Italiana on track with earlier plans. Their compatriot competitors, the Ferretti Group, meanwhile earlier abandoned the course. Yacht Harbour takes a closer look at the situation.
Sanlorenzo entered the stock exchange on December 10 successfully and spent the first day of trading starting from €16 per share, according to the plans they had intended. The initial pricing meanwhile is set to bring total market capitalisation to €552 million, meaning the €72 million capital increase for Sanlorenzo.
However, although the stock traded at or slightly above the IPO offer price for much of the week, it sank on Thursday to close at €15.42. According to GlobalCapital, liquidity was very low even by Thursday, with only 1.5% of the free float traded on the day.
Nonetheless, in regards of the difficult market backdrop towards IPOs of the small and mid-size companies, the situation can be considered positive. Noteworthy, only one third of investors interested in 35% of the shipyard’ listed capitals, come from Italy.
The offering consists of 4.5 million newly-issued shares resulting from a capital increase and 7.6 million shares offered for sale by Happy Life Srl. The latter is the company’s major shareholder, also controlled by Sanlorenzo executive chairman Massimo Perotti.
Perrotti commented:
Today we have reached an important objective, and we are very proud of this achievement. […] Listing on the stock exchange represents a fundamental step for Sanlorenzo, and a new starting point for growth and development on international markets.
Another yachting industry representative, major US retailer OneWater Marine specialising in boats sale and maintenance of boats, filed for an IPO July 12 this year. The company owns and operates 60 stores in the United States.
Founded in 2014, they reported $719 million in FY2019.
On October 15, OneWater Marine announced the terms of its IPO. They were planning to raise $60 million by offering 3.2 million shares at prices ranging from $18 to $20. However, the group decided to postpone its IPO.
Returning to the European market, another key player and competitor of Sanlorenzo, the Ferretti Group, not only postponed but even withdrew from the public listing 30% of the company’s shares due to insufficient valuation.
Ferretti saw lowering of its indicative price range for shares from the initial target of €2.50 to €3.70 per share to only between €2.00 and €2.50. That said, it would have meant a market valuation of € 581 million instead of aimed €1.08 billion.
Under the new prospective, Alberto Galassi, CEO of the company, said in 2020 a share of about 30% might be sold to some new investor from Europe, reported Reuters.