CVC, Singapore’s GIC to cut stake in HKBN listing-Reuters

(Reuters) – HKBN Ltd, the second-largest broadband Internet provider in Hong Kong, filed late on Friday for an initial public offering, with shareholders including private equity firm CVC Capital Partners Ltd set to cut their stakes as part of the deal.

The preliminary filing had no details on the planned size of the IPO, which Thomson Reuters publication IFR previously put at up to $500 million and expected in the first half of 2015.

HKBN, previously known as Hong Kong Broadband Network, will raise no funds from the IPO, with all proceeds going to CVC and other selling shareholders.

Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte Ltd, AlpInvest Partners, a unit of Carlyle Group LP, HKBN Chief Executive William Yeung and a company holding the stakes of several HKBN employees will also sell part of their stakes, the filing showed without giving a detailed breakdown.

HKBN hired Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and UBS as joint sponsors for the IPO and Rothschild as financial adviser.

CVC bought HKBN from Hong Kong Television Network Ltd in May 2012 for HK$4.87 billion ($628 million). The private equity firm three months later sold a $40 million stake to GIC and a $29 million stake to Carlyle’s AlpInvest Partners.

CVC owns 70.7 percent of the holding company for HKBN, with GIC controlling 11.3 percent and AlpInvest Partners 8.1 percent.

The company posted HK$53.6 million of profit in the year ended August 2014 on sales of HK$2.13 billion, compared with losses of HK$139 million and sales of HK$1.95 billion in the year-earlier period.