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Industrivärden has today divested its entire holding of 54,633,318 class B shares in SSAB at a price of SEK 39.20 per class B share. Furthermore, 19,000,000 class A shares have been divested at a price of SEK 49.00 per class A share. The proceeds of the sale totals SEK 3,073 million. The divestment has been made by means of an accelerated book building process addressed to institutional investors. The divested shares represent 7.15 percent of the capital and 6.49 percent of the votes in SSAB. After the transaction Industrivärden’s shareholding in SSAB totals 44,334,933 class A shares, representing 4.31 percent of the capital and 11.77 percent of the votes in SSAB. Industrivärden has entered into a customary lock-up clause on the remaining shares in SSAB of approximately 180 days.
Commenting on the transaction, Industrivärden’s CEO Helena Stjernholm says: ”As part of the developed strategy decided in February 2016, we have increased our focus on returns and strengthened our active ownership. As a result, we have put a lot of effort into the holding in SSAB and also subscribed for our portion of shares in the new issue of shares in 2016. The efforts have been successful and during the last two-year period, the SSAB share has shown a competitive total return of fully 100 percent against the total return index of fully 20 percent. Industrivärden has a stated ambition to reduce the debt in order to increase flexibility, and we have therefore chosen to realize a part of the value increase of our holding in SSAB. As active owners, we support SSAB's long-term strategy and remain the company's largest shareholder in terms of votes."
Morgan Stanley has acted as Sole bookrunner and Carnegie as Co-bookrunner in connection with the transaction and Sundling Wärn Partners has acted as independent advisor to the seller.
Stockholm, 24 April 2018
AB INDUSTRIVÄRDEN (publ)
For further information, please contact:
Helena Stjernholm, Chief Executive Officer, tel. +46-8-666 64 00
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