Talecris Biotherapeutics Holdings Corp.'s initial public
offering of 50 million shares priced at $19 a share Wednesday,
within the expected per-share price range of $18 to $20.
The $950 million IPO would be the second-largest this year,
after last week's $1.04 billion offering by Shanda Games Ltd.
(GAME).
Talecris, a biopharmaceutical company that first registered
plans to go public in July 2007, was a part of German
pharmaceutical company Bayer AG (BAYRY) before it was taken private
by Cerberus Capital Management LP and Ampersand Ventures in 2005
for $304 million.
It is part of what bankers say will be a wave of private-equity
backed deals tapping the markets in the months to come, now that
the environment for IPOs has improved. Scheduled to start trading
Friday is Education Management Corp., a former public company taken
private for $3.4 billion in June 2006.
Last week was the busiest for IPOs in more than 18 months. The
biggest splash was electric-car battery maker A123 Systems Inc.,
whose IPO on Nasdaq soared more than 50% on Thursday.
A third of the shares in the Talecris IPO are being sold by its
private-equity owners and won't benefit the company; the remaining
money raised will be used to pay down debt that was used to retire
earlier loans and to pay a special dividend to its owners.
Talecris specializes in plasma-derived protein therapies for
various diseases, including bleeding disorders and acute liver and
kidney failure; its six largest products captured from 4% to 100%
of the U.S. market share in their categories.
Its revenue, on a steady rise for years, increased 22% in the
first half of 2009. Earnings jumped to $117 million from $19
million a year earlier.
Shares are expected to trade on the Nasdaq Stock Market under
the symbol TLCR.
-By Kathy Shwiff, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2357;
Kathy.Shwiff@dowjones.com
(Lynn Cowan contributed to this report.)