Wendel to sell shares in Bureau Veritas for about $1.19 bln (updated)
04/04/2024 17:52
(Adds details in paragraphs 2-5)
April 4 (Reuters) - French investment firm Wendel
MWDP.PA said on Thursday it was planning to sell 9% of shares
in French business support company Bureau Veritas BVI.PA
through an accelerated bookbuild for about 1.1 billion euros
($1.19 billion).
"This partial monetization of our stake in Bureau Veritas,
is in line with our strategy of portfolio active management, as
detailed during our Capital Markets Day back in December 2023.
It also gives us additional headroom to deploy our value
creation strategy," Wendel Chief Executive Officer Laurent
Mignon said in a statement.
The investment firm said that as part of the transaction,
the Lac1 fund, managed by France's Bpifrance public investment
bank, had committed to purchase approximately 4% of Bureau
Veritas' share capital.
Wendel will remain Bureau Veritas' largest and controlling
shareholder with about 26% of the share capital and 41% of the
voting rights, the group added.
As part of the transaction, Bureau Veritas will acquire a
block of its own shares from Wendel, amounting to a maximum of
100 million euros and representing around 0.8% of its capital,
the inspection and certification firm said in a separate press
release.
($1 = 0.9206 euros)
(Reporting by Gursimran Kaur in Bengaluru and Diana Mandiá in
Gdansk; Editing by Anil D'Silva)
((GursimranKaur.Mehar@thomsonreuters.com;))