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| A fair wind? The question hanging over EDP Renováveis’s IPO is: will it spur on the overall market in Portugal? |
AS EUROMONEY WENT to press, Energias de Portugal (EDP), the Portuguese utility company, had just launched an IPO of its renewable energy unit, EDP Renováveis. Initial suggestions were that the deal, worth up to €2 billion depending on the final issue price, had been well received. As of May 26, the retail tranche, comprising 20% of the overall deal for 25% of the company’s share capital, was 74.6 times oversubscribed. EDP Renováveis said that it had received orders for 3.36 billion shares with just 45.08 million on offer. The deal is the first IPO in Portugal since the turmoil in global financial markets accompanying the credit crisis brought a shuddering halt to what was an increasingly active corner of the equity capital markets. It could be the latest in a long line of turnarounds in fortune.
Portugal’s IPO market has had its share of ups and downs since the first real hot market in 1986/87. But between 2000 and 2005, the only Portuguese IPO of any real size was Media Capital in 2004.