Mail.ru eyes $878m IPO
FACEBOOK investor, Mail.Ru Group’s initial public offering (IPO) is up to two times oversubscribed with nearly two weeks left before pricing, financial market sources said yesterday.
Fund managers said the organisers put total bids as of Tuesday night at $1.1bn. Mail.ru was looking to raise up to $876m in the sale of 16 per cent of its shares in a London IPO to be priced on 8 November.
Another financial market source said that by yesteday the book was two times oversubscribed, including bids at market.
The company set a range of $23.70-$27.70 per Global Depositary Receipt, for a total take of $749-$876m.
“The demand is mainly from investors in Internet companies rather than traditional emerging market investors,” one of the sources said, adding that marketing had bypassed Russian investors altogether.
The most eye-catching investments made by the company, formerly known as Digital Sky Technologies, led by two early investors in the Russian Internet, are in global social networking.