Discount retail firm B&M gets ready to float
DISCOUNT retailer B&M is readying a stock market debut that values the firm at more than £2bn, in a move which could be announced as early as this week.
The Liverpool-based company would follow discounting rival Poundland, which raised £375m on its entry into the London market back in March.
B&M, which has grown from 27 to 370 stores since it was bought by the Arora brothers in 2004, has been 60 per cent owned by private equity fund Clayton Dubilier & Rice since 2012.
Simon, Bobby and Robin Arora became multi-millionaires when the US private equity outfit took its stake, and stand to make even more during the initial public offering. The Sunday Times yesterday put the combined wealth of the Sale-born brothers at £1.4bn, up from £1.1bn a year ago.
B&M sells everything from instant noodles and baked beans to patio furniture. The firm posted revenue growth of 31.5 per cent to nearly £1bn in 2012 and now employs more than 11,000 staff.
BEHIND THE DEAL
ANDREW TUSA | BANK OF AMERICA MERRILL LYNCH
1 Before Tusa moved into the City he spent seven years touring the globe as an opera singer, having studied music at New College, Oxford. He is a tenor.
2 Tusa appears with Winchester College choir on the live CD Mozart Salzburg Masses, dubbed one of the best 10 classical records of the year by The Times when it was released in 1991.
3 Today, Tusa is managing director of corporate broking at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, having joined in 2005. He previously spent nine years at Deutsche Asset Management.
Also advising…
Also expected to be announced on B&M’s intention to float document as early as this week are Goldman Sachs’ co-head of UK investment banking Anthony Gutman and Lazard’s head of equity capital markets Charlie Foreman.
MICHAEL BOW