Onex’ Emerald Expositions files for US $310M IPO on NYSE

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By Ted Liu

Emerald Expositions Events, Inc., a portfolio company of Onex Corporation (TSX: ONEX), has filed with SEC for an initial public offer (IPO) and secondary offering of 15,500,000 shares. The IPO price is expected to be between US $18.00 and US $20.00 per share (all figures in US dollars).

10,333,333 shares will be sold by Emerald and 5,166,667 shares will be sold Onex. Onex has granted the underwriters an option to purchase up to 2,325,000 additional shares from Onex.

Emerald’s common stock has been approved to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “EEX.”

The offering is being co-led by BofA Merrill Lynch, Barclays, and Goldman, Sachs & Co. and including Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank Securities, RBC Capital Markets, and Baird.

Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP and Latham & Watkins LLP act as legal counsel to Emerald and the underwriters respectively.

On June 17, 2014, Onex Partners III acquired Emerald, then known as Nielsen Business Media Holding Company, from Nielsen Holdings N.V. (NYSE: NLSN) for $950 million. Onex Partners III made an equity investment of approximately $350 million.

Following the closing of the offering, Emerald will have 72,202,207 shares outstanding with a value of between $1.30 billion to $1.44 billion at the proposed offering price.

Onex will continue to own 53,808,332 shares or 74.5% if the underwriters exercise their option to purchase additional shares in full.

photo credit: Emerald Expositions Events