Russian Helicopters, which on Wednesday postponed its Initial Public Offering plans indefinitely, says it has not abandoned the idea altogether, Andrei Reus, chief executive of the company’s core shareholder, state defense industry holding Oboronprom said on Thursday.
Reus said the company, which designs and manufactures civil and military rotorcraft, had suspended the London Stock Exchange and Moscow offering because of a poor market for at least a year.
“Everyone knows our figures, we have the highest EBITDA margin. We will confirm them in a year,” he said, adding the company had enough funding sources.
Reus said that Russian Helicopters was looking at merger and acquisition deals and did not rule out a Eurobond issue in the future. He said the company had a credit portfolio with an average interest rate of about 7 percent.
“The company has 461 firm contracts, or 1,500 firm contracts if we take state orders into consideration,” Reus said.
Russian Helicopters intended to raise $500 million from a May IPO by placing ordinary shares held by Oboronprom and new shares represented by Global Depositary Receipts (GDRs), with one GDR representing one ordinary share. The GDR price guidance was set at $19-25, valuing the company at $1.805-2.375 billion.
Russian Helicopters intended to use proceeds from the offering to repay existing debt and buy back shares from minority shareholders.
MOSCOW, May 12 (RIA Novosti)