Drs, what will change for Leonardo after the sale of Ges
Drs, Leonardo's American subsidiary, will sell the Ges satellite communications business to Ses for $ 450 million. What will happen to the IPO project? Facts, numbers and comments
What will become of Leonardo Drs' IPO after the sale of Ges?
On March 22, the US subsidiary Leonardo Drs signed a binding agreement for the sale of the Global Enterprise Solutions (Ges) business to Ses for an amount equal to 450 million dollars.
"It is the largest commercial satellite communications provider for the US government and offers mission-critical satellite communications and world-class security solutions to customers around the world," said the group led by Alessandro Profumo in a statement .
"Leonardo Drs has shifted the focus to the portfolio and selling it now makes more commercial sense," said Bill Lynn, CEO of Leonardo Drs.
With this move, does the IPO project of Drs, announced by Leonardo last year fade? The IPO project – suspended in March 2021 – provided for the placement of 22-25% of Drs for a total income between 730 and 800 million dollars for the parent company. Leonardo would have kept between 75% and 78% of the American group in the defense sector.
Analysts question and lean towards the scenario that the IPO has vanished.
“The sale has the air of an alternative, at least at a financial level, to the listing plan of the entire Drs, which vanished for 10 months because Leonardo found the market conditions in which to debut the freshman unsatisfactory” comments Repubblica .
All the details.
THE SALE OF GES TO SES
“The sale of the Ges business is a further step forward in the execution of the industrial plan: we are optimizing our portfolio and continuing to focus on the core business”, comments the CEO of Leonardo, Alessandro Profumo.
“The operation announced today also confirms the commitment to achieve our objectives, in line with the 2022 guidance,” adds Profumo.
"With the sale of American assets, for a value of 450 million dollars before taxes, equal to 410 million euros at the current exchange rate, Leonardo has approached the goal of collecting around 300 million euros from disposals this year, announced on 11 March ”reports Il Sole 24 Ore.
"Several research offices active on the stock, such as Intesa Sanpaolo, Akros and Bestinver, have noted that the consideration is higher than the rumors circulated in January, with figures between 300 and 400 million dollars" underlines Repubblica .
LEONARDO'S STRATEGY FOR DRS
According to the Confindustria newspaper, “Leonardo makes cash through the American defense electronics subsidiary, with a completely different operation from the one planned a year ago. At that time it was planned to sell 22-25% of Drs in IPO and the consequent listing on Wall Street. The IPO was frozen on the wire on March 24, 2021, for market reasons, said the parent company ".
After the summer, the group led by Alessandro Profumo seemed to try again.
As reported by Reuters in early October 2021, the aerospace group aimed to bring DRS to Wall Street by the autumn, if market conditions allow, placing around 20%. Even on that occasion, the club from Piazza Monte Grappa was not unbalanced .
Now "the sale of Ges represents an alternative to the IPO of Drs, but does not exclude other sale operations", highlights Repubblica . In fact, we recall the dossier (currently in stand-by) of the sale of the Defense Systems Business Unit (formerly Oto Melara and Wass) .
Banca Akros has a different opinion. "For the broker, the operation is positive for Leonardo and seems to avoid resorting to capital increases by the group while the other operations remain on the plate (the ipo of Drs and the sale of Oto Melara and Wass) capable of bringing cash on hand ”, concludes Il Sole 24 Ore .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/drs-cosa-cambiera-per-leonardo-dopo-la-cessione-di-ges/ on Sun, 27 Mar 2022 15:49:32 +0000.