Poundland owner Pepco valued at 5 billion euros in Warsaw listing

By James Davey

LONDON (Reuters) -Steinhoff on Friday priced shares in Poundland owner Pepco at 40 zlotys (8.8 euros) for its Warsaw stock market listing, valuing the discount retailer at around 23 billion zlotys (5 billion euros).

The price tag is towards the lower end of a 38 zloty to 46 zloty per share indicative price range, but at 40 zloty the offer was more than five times subscribed, a person with knowledge of the situation said.

The initial public offering (IPO) is Poland's biggest this year and gives a boost to Warsaw's stock market which has had an uptick in listings, but was passed over by parcel delivery company InPost, which opted to list in Amsterdam in January.

The company chose Warsaw over London because Poland is its largest market.

Pepco, which owns the Poundland chain in the United Kingdom as well as the PEPCO and Dealz brands in Europe, trades from more than 3,200 stores across 16 countries and is led by Chief Executive Andy Bond, a former boss of British supermarket group Asda.

South African conglomerate Steinhoff, which is still grappling with fallout from a 2017 accounting scandal, sold 102.3 million existing shares in Pepco, generating gross proceeds of 4.1 billion zlotys (900 million euros).

The IPO cuts Steinhoff's shareholding in Pepco to 78.9%, assuming full exercise of an over-allotment option of a maximum of 12 million shares.

Pepco, which does not trade online, is targeting more than 1 billion euros in core earnings within five to seven years by trebling its number of stores.

Bond sold 847,436 Pepco shares in the IPO, making about 7.5 million euros. He retains more than 3.7 million shares, worth about 33 million euros at the IPO price.

Pepco shares are expected to start trading on the Warsaw Stock Exchange on May 26.

($1 = 3.7418 zlotys)

(Reporting by James Davey; editing by Andrew MacAskill and Jane Merriman)