Private equity firms are also looking to exit their holdings, but investor appetite for IPOs recently has been unpredictable. While Internet firms such as LinkedIn and Yandex have seen strong demand, others such as
Milwaukee-based Rexnord makes products for process and motion control—gears, couplings, industrial bearings, aerospace bearings and seals—and water management—drainage products, flush valves and faucet products. The company sells products under brands such as Falk, Rodney Hunt and Fontaine, and serves the mining, petrochemical, energy, aerospace and construction markets. For the latest fiscal year ended March 31, Rexnord’s total sales were $1.70 billion. It recorded a net loss of $51.3 million, hurt by early repayment of debt.
Rexnord had first filed to go public in 2006, when it was owned by The
Apollo currently owns about 93.8 percent of Rexnord, which plans to use some proceeds of the IPO to pay the private equity firm a fee for terminating management services with it. The rest will be used for redeeming some notes and other corporate purposes, Rexnord said in its filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The other major shareholder of Rexnord is board chairman George Sherman, former chief executive of diversified manufacturer Danaher Corp. Rexnord intends to list its common stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “RXN”. In its preliminary prospectus, the company did not say how many shares it planned to sell or their expected price. Rexnord also did not reveal what percentage of common stock Apollo would own after the IPO.
(A. Ananthalakshmi is a Bangalore-based correspondent for Reuters news service. Vidya L Nathan in Bangalore also contributed reporting.)