Latitude Gauges Demand for Australia’s Biggest IPO in 2019

(Bloomberg) -- Latitude Financial Group Ltd., an Australian non-bank consumer lender, started gauging demand for its initial public offering, which could raise about A$1.04 billion ($706 million).

The company’s shares are offered at A$1.78 each, giving it a valuation of around A$3.2 billion, according to terms of the deal obtained by Bloomberg. The offer price was below an initial indicative range of A$2 to A$2.25.

Latitude’s offering would be Australia’s biggest this year, surpassing Magellan High Conviction Trust’s A$862 million IPO priced in August, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Companies have raised A$5.5 billion via first-time share sales in Australia so far in 2019, compared to A$7.5 billion raised for the same period last year, the data shows.

In 2015, KKR & Co. Inc., Värde Partners Inc. and Deutsche Bank AG acquired Latitude from General Electric Co. Latitude has 2.6 million customer accounts and supports more than 1,900 merchants across Australia and New Zealand, according to its website.

After the listing, KKR will own 21.4% of the shares in Latitude, while Värde and Deustche Bank will hold 21.5% and 13.5%, respectively, the terms show.

Latitude is expected to wrap up gauging demand of institutional investors by the end of Tuesday, with trading scheduled to start on Friday. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Macquarie Group Ltd. and UBS Group AG are lead managers of the deal.

To contact the reporters on this story: Matthew Burgess in Melbourne at mburgess46@bloomberg.net;Harry Brumpton in Sydney at hbrumpton@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Fion Li at fli59@bloomberg.net, Edward Johnson

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.