TSC’s PE Owners Sell 128M Shares

Danish telecoms group TDC‘s main owners, a group of private equity funds, have sold 128.7 million shares, Reuters reported Tuesday, in a market deal worth nearly $1 billion. Through the sale TDC’s main owners, a consortium called NTC of five private equity investment firms, will reduce their holding in TDC to about 43.3% from about 59%, Morgan Stanley said in a statement.

(Reuters) – Danish telecoms group TDC’s main owners, a group of private equity funds, have sold 128.7 million shares, Morgan Stanley said on Tuesday, in a market deal worth nearly $1 billion.

Through the sale TDC’s main owners, a consortium called NTC of five private equity investment firms, will reduce their holding in TDC to about 43.3 percent from about 59 percent, Morgan Stanley said in a statement.

The deal was done at a price of 43.40 crowns per share, a market source said.

At that price the sale would be worth about 5.59 billion Danish crowns ($994 million).

The price was at a 4 percent discount to Monday’s closing market price for TDC shares of 45.20 per share.

On Tuesday the share price was down 4.7 percent at 43.08 crowns at 1025 GMT.

Morgan Stanley said it sold the stock on behalf of certain investors in NTC. It did not identify them further.

The consortium comprises Apax Partners, the Blackstone Group LP, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Permira Advisers and Providence Equity Partners.

The offering was the second sale of TDC stock by NTC, which bought nearly 89 percent of TDC in the autumn of 2005 and sold 28.8 percent of the stock in one of the biggest share offerings of 2010 for around $2.2 billion.

TDC said late on Monday evening, when the offering was announced, that it would suspend a share buyback during the offering but restart it once it was completed.

Morgan Stanley was the sole bookrunner, with Carnegie and SEB Enskilda acting as selling agents. ($1=5.6242 Danish crowns) (Reporting by John Acher and Kylie MacLellan; Editing by Greg Mahlich)