PE-Owned Skrill Pulls I.P.O.

British online payment company Skrill has pulled its planned London initial public offering, blaming poor market conditions, Reuters reported. The company, which is majority owned by private equity group Investcorp Technology Partners, had planned to had planned to sell 80 million pounds of new shares in the offering to help fund its expansion into new products and locations, Reuters wrote.

(Reuters) – British online payments provider Skrill pulled its planned London listing after books closed on Tuesday, blaming poor market conditions for new issues.

“The IPO (initial public offer) was due to price this week, but the selling shareholders and Skrill management have decided not to proceed with the offer at this juncture due to adverse IPO market conditions,” the company said in a statement.

Skrill, which had already delayed its plans to list from last year, was offering its shares at 235 to 335 pence each.

Fellow UK-based initial public offering (IPO) candidate Edwards scrapped its plans to list last week after its private equity owners were unable to achieve the valuation they had hoped for.

A source close to Skrill said a positive early response from investors had been severely weakened by the Edwards decision and a poor market debut for British digital sports media firm Perform Group (PER.L).

“The nervousness in the market impacted investor confidence,” the source said.

Perform priced its London float at the bottom of its revised price range on Friday and has since seen its shares drop 19 percent below their 260 pence listing price.

Skrill, which has more than 15 million registered users and mainly operates in Europe, had already cut the size of its planned London listing, a bookrunner on the offering said earlier on Tuesday.

Existing investors in Skrill, operator of online payments system Moneybookers.com, were offering to sell 30 million pounds ($49 million) of shares in the float, down from 80 million pounds, the bookrunner said.

The company had planned to sell 80 million pounds of new shares in the offering to help fund its expansion into new products and locations.

The firm is majority owned by private equity group Investcorp Technology Partners, who were due to be among those selling shares in the offering, along with management.

Jefferies and Morgan Stanley were running the offer, along with Bank of America Merrill Lynch. ($1=.6110 Pound)

(Reporting by Owen Wild at IFR and Paul Sandle; Writing by Kylie MacLellan; Editing by Douwe Miedema and Will Waterman)