Offering highlights:
- The final offer price is €14.80 per share
- Schlumberger B.V. has offered a total of 34,821,739 shares, the increase provision being fully exercised
- Schlumberger B.V. has granted the underwriters an over-allotment option representing 5,223,261 shares or 15% of the total shares sold
- Axalto’s free float will represent 87% of the total shares outstanding before the exercise of the over-allotment option
- The total gross proceeds of the offering, excluding the shares covered by the over-allotment option is €515 million
- Schlumberger will receive all the proceeds of the offering (net of fees and commissions). Axalto will receive the proceeds from the employee offering
- The implied market capitalisation of Axalto is approximately €593 million ($711 million2 ), excluding any newly issued shares for the employee offering
- Trading in Axalto shares is expected to commence on the Premier Marché of Euronext Paris on Tuesday 18 May 2004
- Settlement, subject to customary closing conditions, is expected to occur on 20 May 2004.
Olivier Piou, CEO of Axalto, commented “Today is a high point in Axalto’s history. Despite the difficult market environment, there has been a great deal of interest in Axalto from investors worldwide and we are all excited to be taking the company to the natural next phase of its development – its listing on the Premier Marché of Euronext Paris. We are looking forward to the challenge of maintaining our excellent track record in the smart card market and to sharing the benefits of future growth with our investors, our clients and employees.”
Deutsche Bank and SG Corporate & Investment Banking acted as Joint Global Coordinators and Joint-bookrunners for the offering.
Axalto today
Axalto is the leading provider of microprocessor cards in the world in terms of units sold, with a global presence and expertise in all major areas of microprocessor card applications. According to Gartner, Axalto was the leading supplier of microprocessor cards in the world in 2002 with a global market share of 27%. Over the past 25 years, Axalto has consistently led the way in anticipating and shaping its market trends and accelerated the acceptance of industry standards to facilitate new microprocessor card applications. Axalto operates its business through two divisions: Cards and Point-of-Sale (“POS”) terminals. In the Cards division, the company’s technological and manufacturing expertise covers the entire chip card value chain up to the highest value-added applications and has enabled Axalto to become the leading provider of microprocessor cards in
- Mobile telecommunications3
- Financial services4
The company also enjoys strong leadership positions in emerging segments such as governmental and corporate access, Identity and health programs and transport. United by a deeply engrained Schlumberger culture of excellence and high ethical standards, Axalto teams provide their clients with recognized expertise around the world in high-quality, high-volume, low-cost production and product customization and personalization.
Present in 35 countries, Axalto is a truly global player ensuring strong worldwide presence through 11 production facilities (4 in Asia, 4 in Europe and 3 in the Americas), 9 technology centers and approximately 50 sales and marketing facilities around the world as of December 31, 2003. In 2003, Axalto generated net profit of US$25 million on gross revenues of US$768 million.
The company counts close to 4,500 employees drawn from close to 70 different nationalities. Axalto, whose portfolio of patents is in excess of 2,000, has sold over 1 billion chip cards to date, of which 200 million are Java-enabled cards, the industry standard developed by Axalto’s Research & Development teams. Axalto intends to leverage its leading market position and its portfolio of cutting-edge products and services to strengthen and develop its presence in all major microprocessor card markets and to develop new markets and applications for microprocessor card technology.
[1] Worldwide Chip Card and Semiconductor Vendor Market Share Gartner April 2003
[2] Based on an indicative exchange rate of 1.20 USD/EUR
[3] 2004 World GSM Smart Card Markets Frost & Sullivan January 2004
[4] 2004 World Banking Smart Cards Market - Financial & Loyalty Frost & Sullivan January 2004
