ROME (Reuters) -Italian spirits group Campari has raised 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) by selling new shares as well as debt that can be converted into equity to fund last month’s buy of French cognac house Courvoisier, it said on Wednesday.
Campari said it had taken advantage of favourable market conditions as it joined a rush of issuance since the start of the year.
Courvoisier’s $1.2 billion euro acquisition is Campari’s biggest to date, following deals that included the 2016 acquisition of Grand Marnier and the 2022 purchase of Kentucky’s Wilderness Trail Bourbon and Rye Whiskey.
It sold new shares at 9.33 euros each, offering a 6% discount from Tuesday’s closing price and gathered orders through an accelerated bookbuilding procedure.
Shares in Campari fell by more than 5% in early trade, making them the worst performer in percentage terms on the pan-European STOXX 600 index.
It also privately placed with investors senior debt that Campari can opt to repay, when it expires in January 2029, by handing investors shares in the company.
Campari set the conversion price for the 550 million euro bond at 12.3623 euros a share, representing a premium of 32.5% compared to the price at which it issued the new shares.
Each debt note converts into 8.09 shares.
Campari said some of the investors in the bond had hedged their risks by short-selling other Campari shares.
The company will use proceeds from the fundraising for the Courvoisier deal as well as general corporate purposes, it said, while improving the group’s capital structure by cutting debt and extending its average maturity.
The new shares account for 5.6% of Campari’s capital while the bond, if converted, would account for another 3.6% of capital.
BofA Securities, Goldman Sachs, Crédit Agricole CIB, Intesa Sanpaolo and Mediobanca managed the transactions, Campari said.
($1 = 0.9152 euros)
(Reporting by Valentina Za and Alvise Armellini, editing by Giulia Segreti, Louise Heavens and Barbara Lewis)
