Problem child Yell makes the big time

Issuer: Yell Group
Amount: £1.14 billion
Launched: July 1 2003
Bookrunners: Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs

Last month, Apax Partners and Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst finally managed to send their problem child Yell to market. After fishing around for a few days bookrunners Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs found there were plenty of institutional investors interested in the UK telephone directory provider’s stock and launched the IPO on July 1.

The initial deal size was £850 million but investor demand took this to £1.14