Italy's post office valued at up to 9.8 billion euros in IPO

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Italy's Treasury set a price range for the initial public offering of the post office that values it at up to 9.8 billion euros ($11 billion), in what will be the country's biggest privatization in a decade.

The Treasury said on Friday that the post office group would be offering up to 38.2 percent of its capital, in a price range of 6.00-7.50 euros per share, roughly in line with market expectations.

The offer price suggests the share sale of Poste Italiane PSTIT.UL, which will be offered to institutional and retail investors from Oct. 12 until Oct. 22, could raise up to 3.74 billion euros, excluding fees and other costs. The share sale for Poste employees will end on Oct. 21.

The post office's listing is a key plank of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's efforts to revive state asset sales to help cut Italy's public debt.


While proceeds from the sale pale in significance against the country's massive 2.2 trillion euro debt, Renzi is keen to get the listing done as it fits with his long-term agenda of making creaky, overstaffed institutions more efficient and supporting a fledgling economic recovery.

In a bid to lure retail investors, Poste Italiane said on Friday it will pay out at least 80 percent of its 2015 and 2016 net profit in dividends. This is more than most analysts had forecast.

Poste Italiane will also grant retail investors a bonus share for every 20 held for one year. Thirty percent of the share sale will be reserved for individual investors.

Last year the group's net profit fell to 212 million euros from 1 billion euros in 2013, partly dented by one-off costs including redundancies.

In pre-IPO research, analysts at Banca IMI, one of the global coordinators, forecast earnings equal to 522 million euros this year and 534 million euros the next.

The post office, older than the Italian state, has grown into a conglomerate in recent years that raises 85 percent of its 28.5 billion euros revenues from insurance and financial services. In 2014, postal services accounted for just 15 percent of business.

Though smaller, it is similar to Japan's post office, which is looking to list the three separate parts of its business in IPOs at the beginning of November to raise an overall $11.7 billion.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Intesa Sanpaolo, Mediobanca, and UniCredit are global coordinators for the Italian share sale. Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and UBS are book runners.

A successful post office IPO will open the way for the sale of air traffic controller Enav and state railways Ferrovie dello Stato next year, the Treasury has said.