TPG’s Inghams tipped to be worth up to $1.7bn

TPG Capital’s poultry producer Inghams Enterprises is set to be ascribed a valuation somewhere between $1.5 billion and $1.7bn by analysts from the investment banks working on the initial public offering of the chicken and poultry producer as early as today.

Fund managers were being telephoned early last week to book meetings for analyst marketing presentations this week ahead of the float.

It is now understood that the buyout firm has plans to raise between $900m and $1.1bn.

Recent site tours for Inghams attracted a large number of prospective investors, who were upbeat about its potential for earnings uplift, with the possibility that further costs could be slashed through job cuts due to the opportunity to replace manual machinery with automatic machinery.

The IPO is expected to be highly popular among retail investors because of the strong brand recognition, and they are likely to account for between 30 and 40 per cent of the raise.

Macquarie, UBS and Credit Suisse are the three global co-ordinators while Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Citi are joint lead managers.

TPG Capital also owns 28 per cent of the other IPO hopeful Alinta Energy, which is scheduled to list after Inghams in late November.

In that deal, the company is expected to be worth between $3.3bn and $5.2bn in terms of its market value.

The IPO could be worth about $2bn in what will largely appeal to retail investors.

The timing of the raising is interesting, given that it coincides with the redemption dates of Caltex and Origin Energy hybrid securities.

Collectively said to be worth more than $1bn, they are largely held by retail investors, who will now be in search of reinvestment opportunities.

Other shareholders in Inghams are Centrebridge, Armitage, Sankaty, BNZ, Oaktree and York Capital.

Elsewhere, New Zealand salmon producer King Salmon priced at $NZ1.12 a share late last week and will head to the Australian and New Zealand boards on October 19 as a company worth more than $NZ150m.

Other technology businesses set for a listing are text messaging companies Message Media and Soprano Designs, with some betting that the groups are planning a run at the boards to capitalise on the rampant success of San Francisco cloud communications company Twilio.

Engineering provider Veem in Australia’s west, is also listing as a business worth $70m, raising $25m through Euroz. The company is understood to have lodged its prospectus on Friday.