Hill Dickinson advises Ultimate Products on £105m stock market flotation
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International law firm Hill Dickinson has advised on the initial public offering of Greater Manchester-based consumer product group, Ultimate Products. The entire issued share capital of Ultimate Products was admitted to the premium segment of the Official List and to trading on the main market of the London Stock Exchange earlier today.
The offer comprised of 41,084,800 shares, representing 50% of the company’s issued share capital on Admission, priced at 128 pence per share, raising approximately £52.6 million for the selling shareholders and equating to a market capitalisation of approximately £105.2 million. Conditional dealings started on 1 March with full admission occurring earlier this morning.
The company is the owner, licencee, designer, developer and manager of a series of brands focused on the home, such as Beldray (owned), Salter (under licence) and Russell Hobbs (under licence), and sells to more than 300 retailers across 38 countries. It develops, designs, sources and distributes a wide range of consumer products, focussing on the product categories of small domestic appliances, housewares, audio, laundry, heating and cooling, and luggage.
Ian Gillis, Jonathan Gillow and Sean Lightfoot from Hill Dickinson’s corporate team advised Ultimate Products on the transaction, which is one of the largest floats on the London Stock Exchange of the year so far.
Ian Gillis said: “We are delighted to have acted for Ultimate Products on its highly successful IPO. This is another example of Hill Dickinson’s expertise in equity capital markets and, in particular, the main market of the London Stock Exchange. We look forward to supporting the company and management team going forward.”
Shore Capital acted as sponsor and bookrunner while Cenkos acted as joint bookrunner.
CEO Simon Showman and non-executive director, Barry Franks, co-founded the business in 1997 with Andrew Gossage joining as managing director in 2005, and together will retain approximately 44.85% of the shares in the company. The company has appointed Jim McCarthy, formerly CEO of Poundland, as independent non-executive chairman.