Share services firm Equiniti aims to raise $590 mln in London listing

LONDON, Oct (HKSE: 3366-OL.HK - news) 2 (Reuters) - British technology firm Equiniti Group, which provides share registration and investor services to companies, said it planned to raise 390 million pounds ($591 million) by listing on the London stock market this month.

Equiniti (IPO-EQUI.L) said gross proceeds from the initial public offering (IPO) would be used to repay part of its bank debt and pay for certain transaction, tax and other financing related costs arising as a result of the listing. It (Other OTC: ITGL - news) did not say how much of the company it planned to float.

The firm provides share registration services to about 70 of the companies in the FTSE 100 and also administration of employee share plans, pensions administration and software. It said it made adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of 82 million pounds in the year to the end of June, on revenue of 350 million pounds.

It said it would target having net debt of about 3.25 times its 2015 earnings by the end of this year.

The company was formed as a stand-alone group in 2007 after being carved out from Lloyds TSB - now part of Lloyds Banking (Xetra: 871784 - news) Group, and is about 85-percent owned by private equity firm Advent International.

Equiniti said Advent could sell shares in the offer, as could directors of the company and other investors.

Barclays (LSE: BARC.L - news) and Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS-PB - news) are handling the offer and Credit Suisse (LSE: 0QP5.L - news) is a joint bookrunner.

($1 = 0.6602 pounds) (Reporting by Steve Slater; Editing by Pravin Char)