Reliance Worldwide chairman Jonathan Munz will step down from the firm his family founded after selling $367m worth of stock in the company.
A term sheet obtained by Dataroom shows that Mr Munz will hand over control of the company “after an orderly handover to a new chairman” once the sale of the shares is complete.
Macquarie is tonight finalising the sale of the stock which are being offloaded at $4.65 per share, a 4.7 per cent discount to the company’s Tuesday closing price of $4.88.
Mr Munz has an estimated worth of at least $1.24 billion and last year spent an extra $110m when the company was carrying out a capital raising to buy John Guest Holdings in Europe.
Reliance Worldwide was listed in the ASX in 2016. The shares were sold at $2.50 and have performed strongly since then making it one of the most successful floats in Australia in the past few years. The Munz family took nearly $875m off the table when they sold 70 per cent of Reliance in the IPO that was handled by JPMorgan and Macquarie.
Mr Munz is a keen race horse enthusiast and serves as the chairman of the Victorian Thoroughbred Owners Association.
His decision to relinquish the chairmanship of Reliance is expected to be announced to the ASX on Wednesday.
Macquarie’s equities desk on Tuesday was selling down the Munz family’s 10 per cent stake in Reliance Worldwide.
Shares in the “behind the wall” plumbing supplies business were being offered to fund managers at $4.65 each, according to a term sheet released on Tuesday night, which values the stake at $367.3 million.
The share parcel represents the Munz stake held by GSA Custodians.
The move comes after Reliance on Monday posted an interim net profit of $65.7 million, up 58 per cent. The lift was driven by last year’s $1.2 billion John Guest acquisition. The company posted net sales of $544.2 million, up 50 per cent over the previous corresponding period. Reliance shares were sold in the IPO at $2.50 a share in 2016.
The IPO was intended to provide liquidity for the founding Munz family, who have much of their wealth tied up in the business.
Macquarie Capital in recent years has executed a selldown of the Munz family’s 30 per cent stake to 10 per cent.
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