McAleese secures investors for $155m IPO
JPMorgan Chase & Co, Credit Suisse Group and Macquarie Group Ltd have secured cornerstone investors for a $155 million initial public offering of McAleese Group, the transport and logistics company which was formed in Queensland during the Great Depression.
The three investment banks received orders for McAleese from fund managers and wealthy families. The banks will embark on a road show in coming days as they select who will get stock in the Melbourne-based company that may begin trading on the ASX in the last week of October.
The road show was scheduled to visit Asia and New Zealand but the underwriters of the IPO may not go outside Australia because local demand for stock is sufficient.
McAleese’s chief executive is Paul Garaty and its chairman is Mark Rowsthorn, a former top executive at Toll Holdings Ltd and Asciano Ltd. Both men have signaled to investors they are intent on acquiring similar businesses as they seek to expand their company’s earnings and geographical reach.
The IPO is priced at 9.5 times 2014 earnings and is set to raise $155 million. That gives McAleese a market value of about $450 million. The company, started in northern Queensland about 80 years ago, has three main business units: a heavy haulage and crane division, a bulk and liquid transport unit and an oil and gas distributor.
The company’s debt to earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization is 1.75 times.
To date this year there have been $3.6 billion worth of IPOs in Australia and New Zealand, 59 per cent of total offerings coming from just two NZ share sales alone, the $1.4 billion IPO of Mighty River Power Ltd and the $736 million IPO of Z Energy Ltd, according to Bloomberg data.
Macquarie is far ahead of its competitors in managing IPOs in Australia and NZ with a No. 1 ranking and a 69 per cent market share of all Australian and N.Z. IPOs this year, according to the data. Credit Suisse is ranked No. 6 and JPMorgan No. 13.