PAI eyes listing of Swedish chemicals firm Perstorp -sources

STOCKHOLM/LONDON, July 15 (Reuters) - Private equity firm PAI wants to list Perstorp in a deal that could value the Swedish chemicals firm at more than 1.5 billion euros ($1.7 billion) including debt, while also working to refinance that debt, people familiar with the matter said.

PAI is working with investment bank Rothschild on the potential stock market listing, the people said on Wednesday, adding a refinancing of its debt could take place either before or in conjunction with a listing which could happen later this year or in early 2016.

PAI declined comment. No-one at Rothschild could immediately be reached for comment.

PAI has owned Perstorp for a decade, far longer than the usual timeframe for buyout houses, which typically buy companies, seek to improve their performance then sell them on after between four and six years.

Perstorp adds to a pipeline of planned initial public offerings (IPOs) in Stockholm following an active market so far in 2015. Shares (Frankfurt: DI6.F - news) worth 28 billion crowns ($3.3 billion) have been sold in IPOs on the main list of the exchange, more than in all of 2014, according to Thomson Reuters (Dusseldorf: TOC.DU - news) data.

Other private equity-owned companies mulling listings are Bain's Bravida and EQT's Dometic.

Perstorp, which makes feed additives, biodiesel and chemical products for plastics and coatings, had earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of 1.5 billion Swedish crowns ($176 million) in the year to March 31.

At a day of briefings for analysts and investors earlier this year, the company said its net debt was 7.4 times reported EBITDA. That debt, of 11.25 billion Swedish crowns excluding pension liabilities and a shareholder loan, burdens it with high interest costs and includes a $370 million second-lien note with an 11 percent coupon.

Including debt, competitors BASF SE (Xetra: BASF11 - news) and Eastman Chemical Co trade at 8 and 9 times trailing core earnings respectively. A multiple of 9 for Perstorp would give it an enterprise value of 1.5 billion euros.

Perstorp employs around 1,500 and has plants in Europe, Asia and North America.

Paris-based PAI bought the company for 9.2 billion crowns in 2005 from Swedish private equity firm IK Investment Partners, which had bought it in 2001 through a public offer on the Stockholm stock exchange. ($1 = 0.9076 euros) ($1 = 8.5168 Swedish crowns) (Reporting by Sven Nordenstam and Freya Berry Additional reporting by Robert Smith at IFR; Editing by David Holmes)