Cat cure firm Circassia in biggest healthcare float for eight years
A CURE for cat allergies could soon be hitting the market after its Oxford-based developers yesterday confirmed plans to raise £175m on the London stock market in the biggest healthcare float since 2006.
Circassia, which is privately backed by firms like Invesco Perpetual and hedge fund Lansdowne Partners, said it will use the money to roll out the cure to the public.
The listing will be the biggest healthcare float by a UK company since the 2006 IPO of Southern Cross Healthcare and the fifth biggest healthcare float in London over the last decade, according to Thomson Reuters data.
“The UK market is a great market and given the support we’ve seen we want to build a great British company,” boss Steve Harris told City A.M.
The business, which is due to list next month, was originally spun out of a development division within Imperial College, London in 2006.
Its backers, which have so far invested £105m in the company, will remain invested in the business and increase their stakes by buying into the initial offering of public shares. The boss of Imperial Innovations Russ Cummings, which owns about 20 per cent of Circassia, said: “This listing creates an excellent opportunity to build a leading UK-based biopharmaceutical company which is addressing a substantial and growing international market.”
ADVISERS CIRCASSIA
NICK HALL
JP MORGAN CAZENOVE
Circassia has appointed JP Morgan Cazenove as global co-ordinator and sole sponsor for the float.
It is also joint bookrunner alongside Peel Hunt. Co-managers on the offering are Canaccord Genuity and Shore Capital.
Leading the deal team for JP Morgan is Nick Hall, who is part of the bank’s UK equity capital markets team holding the role of managing director.
He joined the bank in 2005 as part of its merger with Cazenove. Before that he worked at Cazenove from 1996 onwards. Hall has previously worked on several big money raisings.
In August 2012 he helped work on the jumbo rights issue for Melrose while in December 2012 he helped lead the £15m fund raise for cinema chain Cineworld Group.
He has also worked with Entertainment One in corporate finance issues and helped bring Stock Spirits Group to the market late last year.
Also working on the deal from JP Morgan’s end is Gina Gibson, an executive director in the consumer investment banking team who has been a longstanding adviser to online fashion retail company Asos.
The deal follows a busy year last year for JP Morgan’s global corporate finance team in the biotech and pharma space.
It helped launch the $750m convertible bond for Incyte Corp, Unilab’s €685m high yield bond issue and the £400m high yield bond issue for Integrated Dental Holdings.