International law firm Taylor Wessing has advised FDM Group (Holdings) plc, the international provider of professional IT and business services, around the successful pricing of its initial public offering of shares to the premium segment of the Official List of the Financial Conduct Authority and for trading on the main market of the London Stock Exchange.
Based on the offer price, the market capitalisation of FDM will be approximately £308.5 million, making it the UK’s largest listed IT services provider.
FDM announced the pricing of its IPO earlier this week (17th June), placing 81,774,399 shares with investors, priced at 287p each, which is expected to raise £242.7 million. Of the funds raised, £234.7 million will be for selling shareholders, including certain company directors and Inflexion Private Equity, which is selling its entire shareholding in FDM as part of the offer.
Admission to the LSE and dealing in shares is expected to commence at 8.00am on 20th June 2014.
Russell Holden, Head of Corporate Finance at Taylor Wessing, said: “For a business that started in an attic 23 years ago to grow to be the largest listed company of its kind in the country is an incredible achievement, all the more so given the recent uncertainties in the tech IPO market. This development highlights the strength of FDM Group’s business model.
“As a client FDM Group is right in Taylor Wessing’s sweet spot – a family business with a great growth story in a dynamic industry. The deal serves to reinforce the firm’s capital markets expertise, as well as its position as a market leader in advising technology companies.”
In the Company’s announcement to the LSE, Rod Flavell, CEO, said: “Over the last 23 years FDM has grown through multiple technology cycles to establish itself as a leading global professional consulting firm focused on the IT sector. Our highly differentiated business model of training our own IT and business consultants for specific client needs and placing them as salaried employees within our blue-chip client base has been at the core of this success.
With the support of Inflexion we have expanded both our geographic reach and breadth of service offering significantly over recent years and this strengthened operational platform leaves FDM extremely well-placed to capitalise on the strong growth prospects of an IT market with global opportunities in big data, mobile and social media. A public listing will help accelerate this next phase of our development, providing additional funding and raising the profile of FDM with clients and potential employees. We welcome our new shareholders and, with their support, look forward to delivering the next chapter of our growth story.”
Taylor Wessing is one of very few law firms to have an international team dedicated to corporate technology – acting for companies in the technology, media and communications (TMC) sectors throughout their life-cycle, from start-up to exit, as well as funds and large corporates investing in tech. Our international corporate technology practice provides the whole breadth of transactional services – venture capital, M&A, private equity and capital markets – exclusively to TMC companies.
The Taylor Wessing team was led by corporate partner Russell Holden, supported by corporate associates Alexandra Richardson and James Homan. Specialist input was provided by Ann Casey (Tax & Incentives); James Watkins (Employment); Sally Annereau (Data Protection); Matthew Nicholls (Pensions), Adam Marks and Georgina Watt (Real Estate), and Graham Hann and John Finlay (IT, Telecoms and Competition).
