A total of 91m shares were sold for £10 each. Some 75m were sold to cornerstone and institutional investors, putting 82.4% of the share capital of the firm into free float, while the firm also sold other portions of stock to investors in exchange for portions of real estate portfolios.
Total cash proceeds from the sale were £840m.
“There was 10 days from the intention to float to the pricing of the deal,” said one banker. “There was so much demand pre-launch that we were able to do an accelerated process. Kennedy Wilson is well-known in the US and also has successful operations in Europe. If investors wanted to play the recovery in the commercial real estate sector, this was a good company to play it with.”
An overallotment allocation of up to 9.1m shares — or 10% of the available stock — may be issued up to 30 days after the deal’s pricing, taking the total deal size to £1bn. Deutsche Bank is the stabilising manager on the deal controlling the overallotment portion. The German bank is also the sponsor, joint global co-ordinator and joint bookrunner on the deal, while Bank of America Merrill Lynch has acted as the joint global co-ordinator and joint bookrunner. Davy is the joint bookrunner while Bank of Ireland was lead manager.