Italy’s De Nora IPO oversubscribed despite turbulent market -bookrunner

(Reuters) -Industrie De Nora, Italy’s first initial public offering (IPO) since Russia invaded Ukraine, overcame market turbulence on Wednesday with its books oversubscribed in less than two hours, one of the bookrunners said.

Family controlled De Nora, founded in 1923, is a leading manufacturer of electrodes for devices such as rechargeable batteries and makes systems for water filtration and waste water treatment as well as components to produce green hydrogen.

The company managed to cover the full deal size including the greenshoe option, putting it on track for a valuation of up to 3.28 billion euros ($3.45 billion).

De Nora is seeking 200 million euros in fresh cash through the IPO, while existing shareholders will sell shares for up to 371 million euros.

De Nora set a price range of between 13.50 and 16.50 euros per share and secured two cornerstone investors, the Garrone Mondini family and the family office of Ruthi Wertheimer which pledged to invest up to 100 million euros each in the IPO.

Bookbuilding is expected to end on June 27 and De Nora shares are expected to start trading in Milan on June 29, one of the bookrunners said.

Germany’s Thyssenkrupp, said last Friday it would not go ahead with an initial public offering (IPO) of its hydrogen division Nucera citing market volatility.

Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs are joint global coordinators on De Nora’s IPO, alongside joint bookrunners BofA Securities, Mediobanca (MDBI.MI) and Unicredit in cooperation with Kepler Cheuvreux.

(Reporting by Michael Shields and Lucy Raitano, writing by Agnieszka Flak, Andres Gonzalez; editing by Giulia Segreti and Jason Neely)