ISS Will Release Listing Details Today

Danish outsourcing group ISS will publish the details of its Copenhagen listing in which it hopes to raise as much as $2.5 billion, Reuters reported. The details should be released Thursday. Private equity owners Goldman Sachs and EQT bought ISS in a 2005 leveraged buyout, and will keep almost all their shares, with their stock subject to a six-month lock-up period after the listing, Reuters wrote.

(Reuters) – Danish outsourcing group ISS will publish on Thursday the prospectus for a Copenhagen listing in which it hopes to raise up to $2.5 billion, four people familiar with the matter said.

ISS, whose initial public offering (IPO) is on track to be Europe’s biggest so far this year, was expected to say in the prospectus the price range at which it will offer shares.

The firm, one of the world’s biggest private-sector employers with more than 500,000 workers, has said it planned to raise up to 13.3 billion Danish crowns ($2.5 billion) from the sale of mainly new shares to pay down debt.

Releasing its annual report on Thursday ahead of the prospectus, ISS said now was the right time to list.

“The contemplated IPO is expected to support ISS’s future growth and operational strategy, advance the company’s public and commercial profile, and provide improved access to public capital markets along with a diversified base of new Danish and international shareholders,” it said.

Private equity owners Goldman Sachs (GS.N) and Swedish group EQT, who bought ISS in a leveraged buyout in 2005, will keep almost all their shares, with their stock subject to a six-month lock-up period after the listing.

ISS’s senior debt facilities stood at 18 billion crowns at the end of 2010, making up 59 percent of ISS’s total net debt. The IPO would cut the company’s debt/EBITDA ratio to 3.5 from 6. (Reporting by Mette Fraende, Peter Levring and Kylie MacLellan; Editing by Dan Lalor) ($1 = 5.369 Danish crowns)