New Star set for float next month
Renegade fund manager John Duffield is set to create 40 millionaires when he embarks on the £600m float of New Star Asset Management next month.
The company will confirm its long expected float this morning alongside what analysts expect to be a sparkling set of results.
The IPO is expected to take place next month with a new and bolstered boardroom at the group. Sir Dominic Cadbury has agreed to join the company as senior independent non-executive director and as deputy chairman. He will sit alongside newcomers John Craig and David Gamble, who have each agreed to join New Star as nonexecutive directors.
While 40 millionaires will be created from the float, New Star’s receptionist Zoe Shaw and former financial journalist John Jay said the staff will be subject to staggered lock-in arrangements until November 2009, meaning workers will have to wait before enjoying their windfall.
Directors and employees are expected to sell around 5 per cent of the shares beneficially owned by them in the placing, representing approximately 3 per cent of New Star’s share capital. Institutional investors are expected to offload a further 15-20 per cent of their shares in New Star in the float.
Analysts are also expecting Duffield to reveal bumper annual profits of more than £40m tomorrow.
Duffield set New Star up five years ago, when he quit Jupiter Asset Management after falling out with its German owner Commerzbank. New Star now manages £15bn in assets and is consistently rated as one of the industry’s top performers.
UBS Investment Bank will act as nominated adviser, sole bookrunner and global coordinator to New Star in relation to the proposed float. Citigroup Global Markets UK Equity will be joint lead manager. Goldman Sachs International, HSBC Bank and Putnam Lovell NBF Securities will be the project’s financial advisers.
