Russian oil explorer Exillon Energy to raise £62m in rare London flotation
OIL explorer Exillon Energy is to raise about £62m in the first London stock market flotation by a Russian company since the financial crisis began.
Exillon, which has operations in the Western Siberia and Komi regions of northern Russia, plans to place 40.5 million shares at 153p each. The IPO represents just under a third of Exillon’s share capital and values the group at £186m.
The Dubai-based group intends to use the cash to repay debt and develop drilling projects up to 2011.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch is sponsoring the flotation and also co-ordinating and underwriting the listing along with Dutch investment bank ING. The two banks and Mirabaud Securities are also acting as joint book-runners.
Among the advisers working on the IPO are BoA Merrill Lynch corporate broker Andrew Osborne, Jeroen van de Crommenacker and Chris Godman at ING and Peter Krens at Mirabaud, Exillon said.
Russian companies have recently announced several secondary share placements and bond issues, but Exillon will be the first to successfully launch a listing outside local markets.
The IPO represents just under a third of Exillon’s share capital and values the group at £186m.
Exillon bought its Western Siberia and Timan-Pechora fields in January and April this year respectively.