LONDON: Misys, the UK financial-software maker owned by Vista Equity Partners, plans to sell about 500 million pounds ($635 million) of stock in an initial public offering as the buyout firm prepares to cash out part of its 2012 investment in the company.
The shares will begin trading on the London Stock Exchange in early November, the company said in a statement on Thursday. Proceeds from the sale, along with money from new borrowings, will be used to repay existing debt, Misys said. Vista and Misys board members and management also may sell stock in the offering, according to the statement. Misys and its private-equity owner are taking advantage of investor demand for software stocks. European application-software companies with a market value of $1 billion or more have returned an average of 14 per cent this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, compared with a 5.7 per cent decline for the Stoxx 600 Index.
About 25 per cent of Misys stock will be available for trading after the sale, the company said. Goldman Sachs, BofA Merrill Lynch and J P Morgan Cazenove are managing the sale, along with Morgan Stanley, Barclays, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank. Moelis & Co. is financial adviser to the company. Bloomberg News reported in August that Vista had picked advisers for the sale. Vista acquired Misys in 2012 for 1.3 billion pounds in a deal that took the company private.
