Cleary acted as US counsel to ABG Sundal Collier and Goldman Sachs as joint global coordinators and joint bookrunners, and BofA Merrill Lynch and SEB as joint bookrunners in the offering of shares of Europris ASA. The offering consisted of a public offering in Norway and an institutional offering outside Norway of 83,484,444 shares, or 38.7% of Europris’s shares. Europris issued 18,888,888 new shares in the offering and Nordic Capital and certain other shareholders sold 64,595,556 shares in the offering. The offering price was NOK 45 per share. The price implies a market capitalization of Europris of approximately $7.5 billion. The offering closed on June 23. The over-allotment option was exercised on July 17 with respect to 2,087,196 additional shares, increasing the total size of the offering to 85,571,640 shares, 66,682,752 of which were sold by Nordic Capital and certain other shareholders. The additional shares settled on July 21.
Europris is Norway’s largest discount variety retailer by sales with company revenue of NOK 4.3 billion in 2014. Europris offers its customers a broad assortment of quality owned brands and brand name merchandise. Europris’s merchandise is sold through the Europris chain, which consists of a network of 223 stores throughout Norway, 159 of which are directly owned by Europris and 64 of which operate as franchise stores. Europris’s headquarters are located in Fredrikstad, Norway. As of March 31, 2015, Europris employed approximately 2,000 full-time and part-time employees.
