Industri Kapital reduces Oriflame holding

Industri Kapital has reduced its stake in Oriflame Cosmetics, a Swedish cosmetics manufacturer registered in Luxemburg, from 11.8% to 4.5%, raising about SKr1.2bn (US$164m).

The Industri Kapital 1997 fund has sold 4.3m Swedish depositary receipts in Oriflame, corresponding to 7.2% of the total number of shares and votes in the company, to a number of Swedish and international institutional investors. The SDRs were sold for approximately SKr280 each.

The sale was managed by Carnegie Investment Bank.

The Nordic buyout group acquired its stake in 1999, when it supported a buyout and delisting from the London Stock Exchange together with the af Jochnick family. In 1999, a unit of Luxemburg’s Oriflame International purchased the 50% of Oriflame’s stock that it did not already own for a total value of about US$212m in cash.