Russian steel company to list

Evraz, the Russian steel company is making plans to offer shares on the London Stock Exchange. It becomes the latest Russian company to launch an initial public offering in London.

Conglomerate Sistema completed a listing in February, and Russia’s largest grocery retailer, Pyaterochka, listed earlier this month.

The listing, which is expected to begin trading shortly after the beginning of June, comes at a time when steel prices seem to have reached a peak and are on the way down.

Evraz will sell 29.1 million global depository receipts (GDRs) in a Luxembourg-based holding company. Each GDR will be priced between $13.5 and $17, and three GDRs will equal one share in the company.

This puts the market value of the company at somewhere between $4.7 billion and $6 billion. The company is expected to raise between $393 million and $495 million with this IPO.

Evraz plans to use the capital raised in the sale to make improvements to plants and mills, and to make acquisitions at home and abroad.

The company recently bought a manganese mine in the Caucasus , in Georgia, and is believed to be interested in bidding on a steel plant in the Czech Republic.

Alexander Abramov, the founder and chief executive of Evraz, is believed to own around 65 percent of shares in the company.

Story link: Russian steel company to list