Financial market sources say RCS&RDS wants it done by the beginning of May, and the move would turn many investors’ attention to Romania. By going public, Zoltan Teszari, the man who created the group and owns 47% in it, wants to allow other shareholders to sell their stakes.
The other RCS&RDS shareholders are Everest Trust (US investor Wayne Quash) – 14.6%, Eton Park – 7.2%, Gustav Wurmbock – 3.79%, Matthias Eckert – 3.29%, Ioan Bendei – 3.4%, Gheorghe Maftei (3.31%), Sfetozar Bugraski (3.2%), according to the end November 2016 data, the latest available. Other shareholders not nominated in the RCS&RDS report issued in November at the sale of some bonds and the refinancing of a loan (EUR350 million bonds and a 1.7 billion lei loan) own 14%.
RCS&RDS, which has operations in Romania, Hungary, Spain and Italy, posted EUR617 million revenue for nine months in 2016, while EBITDA reached EUR197 million. Total net debt stood at EUR708 million.
RCS&RDS posted EUR750 million revenue and EUR237 million EBITDA in 2015.
To handle the floatation and finding investors to buy 20% to 30% in it, the group hired a syndicate comprising Citi and Deutsche Bank to handle the global market, Czech Republic’s Wood for investors in Central and Eastern Europe, BRD, Banca Transilvania and Raiffeisen for the local market.
RCS is valued at EUR1.5 billion to EUR2 billion and the sale of the stake should amount to EUR500 million to EUR600 million.
The floatation of RCS, a company that is seeing the highest growth on the telecom market and its rivals envy and hate for its aggressiveness in gaining customers and the low prices charged, would be a big moment for the Bucharest Stock Exchange, which needs private sector companies to move onto the next level.
Teszari had previously tried to take RCS to the London or New York stock exchanges at the end of 2007 but the plans fell through due to the onset of the crisis.
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)