FRANKFURT (Reuters) – The private equity owner of Flint, the world’s second-biggest printing ink maker, plans an initial public offering for the company, possibly by mid-year, two people familiar with the matter said.
Flint’s owner, CVC, has commissioned Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) and Morgan Stanley (MS.N: Quote, Profile, Research) to prepare the IPO, the sources told Reuters on Tuesday, confirming an earlier report in German daily Financial Times Deutschland.
CVC said it regularly assesses all its options for an exit, without commenting further.
Europe’s IPO pipeline is filling again as the global economy slowly recovers, rekindling investor appetite. In Germany, private equity company BC Partners plans to float part of German chemical distributor Brenntag.
According to its website, Luxembourg-based Flint posted 2.4 billion euros ($3.4 billion) of sales in 2008. It has 7,800 employees around the world.
CVC created the company by merging the printing ink unit of BASF (BASF.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) that it bought in 2004 with Sweden’s ANI Printing Inks and U.S.-based Flint. (Reporting by Kerstin Leitel and Frank Siebelt; Writing by Maria Sheahan; Editing by Dan Lalor) ($1 = 0.7072 euro)
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