Banks Abandon Pirelli IPO at Last Minute

Banks advising Pirelli Tyre on its initial public offering withdrew the company from floatation at the last minute (30 June). The state of the Italian floatation market was blamed for the decision. Pirelli Tyre had been scheduled to make its debut on the Milan stock exchange on Wednesday 5th July, and was valued at between 1.9 and 2.3 billion euros.

The news that Pirelli Tyre has backed out of the IPO follows the company’s decision to cut the price range for the IPO by about 10 per cent to between 7.40 and 9 euros after low levels of demand.

According to reports, Pirelli Tyre’s parent company (Pirelli & Cie) had been hoping to raise £550 million from the sale, which it wanted to use to increase its stake in Telecom Italia. In order to do this Pirelli would have to buy out some of the other Olimpia shareholders, a holding company controlling an 18 per cent stake in Telecom Italia. After the decision to abort the Pirelli Tyre IPO was aborted, Pirelli & Cie commented that its “financial solidity” would allow it to buy out fellow Olimpia shareholders without “any extraordinary operations”.