(Adds valuations, background)
By Jan Korselt
PRAGUE, April 10 (Reuters) - Hard coal miner New World
Resources (NWR) said it could list up to a third of its shares
in the Czech Republic's biggest initial public offering, which
values the firm at $4.1-6.7 billion.
NWR said on Thursday it intended to float 25-33 percent of
its shares in London, Prague and Warsaw, and that a substantial
part of the offering, to be completed in the second quarter,
would be in existing stock.
"The market will determine the size of the offering and the
valuation implied by the offering," said Chief Financial Officer
Marek Jelinek.
"The exact split between new and existing shares will be
decided at the moment of allocation. I can tell you that a
substantial portion will be a sale of existing shares."
Analyst Josef Nemy from Komercni Banka, a unit of Societe
Generale, put the value of the firm at 65-71 billion crowns
($4.10-4.47 billion) using the price/earnings ratio.
Petr Novak of brokerage Atlantik FT valued the firm at 4.2
billion euros ($6.66 billion), which would make the IPO worth up
to 1.4 billion, based on 2007 results.
"The shares of NWR could attract investors due to rising
prices of coal on global markets. Demand for coal is strong
thanks to the expansion of the steel and metallurgy industries,"
said Novak.
"The conditions on the global markets are not perfect ...
but their business environment is good and they probably need
money for expansion," he added.
NWR said contracted coking coal prices jumped 61 percent
this year from 2007, while steam coal prices rose 44 percent.
Dutch-registered NWR mines coking and steam coal in the
eastern Czech Republic and plans to develop two mines in Poland,
across the border from its Czech operations.
Jelinek said NWR would use the IPO proceeds to fund the
expansion as well as modernisation of its current mines.
Co-owned by Czech financier Zdenek Bakala, NWR picked Morgan
Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Cazenove as joint global
co-ordinators and bookrunners. Citigroup is joint lead manager.
NWR also said its revenue rose 10.7 percent last year to
1.37 billion euros ($2.17 billion), and earnings before
interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) grew 24.2
percent to 351 million.
Net profit jumped 94 percent to 196 million euros.
NWR's biggest customers include steel mills such as Arcelor
Mittal Steel <MTP.PA> <ISPA.AS> and U.S. Steel <X.N>, energy
utilities such as CEZ <> and large industrial companies
in the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Germany, Austria and
Hungary.
The company said it had 419 million tonnes of proven and
probable saleable reserves.
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(Writing by Jan Lopatka; Editing by Paul Bolding)
