Spain's Acciona seeks to value energy unit at $10.8bn in IPO

Spain's Acciona said it is aiming for the lower end of an original price range for a listing which is set to value its renewable energy unit at up to €9.05 billion ($10.80bn). Acciona decided to trim the price at which it will sell shares in its most profitable unit to between €26.73 and €27.50 a share, from an initial range of €26.73 to €29.76. Acciona Energia is due to start trading on the Madrid stock market on July 1, in one of the biggest listings in a record year so far in Europe. Order books close on June 29. Spurred by a global drive to reduce planet-warming carbon emissions, Acciona plans to use the proceeds to add to a renewable generation fleet currently dominated by wind farms in the US, Australia, Spain, Chile and Mexico, by 2025. Pricing the deal at the upper end of the narrower range would give Acciona Energia a market value of around €9.05bn, Reuters calculations show. In the 2021 ranking of major initial public offerings, this would come close to the £7.6bn ($10.58bn) valuation achieved by British online food company Deliveroo, and below the €12.1bn by Vodafone's infrastructure unit Vantage Towers. After a record number of stock offerings at the beginning of this year, some of which performed poorly on the market, investors have appeared fatigued and some IPO candidates have cancelled their plans. Acciona, whose family owners will remain the biggest shareholders, had originally aimed to raise as much as €9.8bn from what will be the largest IPO in Spain in more than six years. Acciona said it has attracted enough demand to cover the offer, which will all be existing stock, representing 15 per cent of the business, plus an overallotment option representing a further 15 per cent of the amount offered, the company said. It will raise around €1.36bn from the 15 per cent sale. Taking into account the greenshoe option, that could rise to €1.56bn. The company had originally given itself the option to list up to 25 per cent. The publicly traded stake is now expected to be 17.25 per cent.