MILAN (Reuters) – The De Nora family in Italy will be glad that the company that makes electrodes was able to get listed on the Milan Stock Exchange on Thursday. Earlier attempts to list businesses failed because of problems in other countries.
Federico De Nora, chairman of Industrie De Nora, said, “At the beginning of the century, we were almost ready to list our fuel cell unit Nuvera in the United States, but the dot-com bubble and the financial effects of 9/11 stopped us.”
“In 2016, we planned an IPO for the group, but the unexpected result of the Brexit referendum upset the markets.” “This time, a war broke out,” he said, referring to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February.
Since the start of the conflict, De Nora has been the first company to list on the main Milan market. Its shares are priced at the bottom of the range, but the company is worth 2.7 billion euros ($2.8 billion).
On Thursday, the first day of trading, the shares went down.
The listing price is more than double what it was in November 2020, when Italian gas grid operator Snam purchased a 33% stake from US fund Blackstone (NYSE:BX) in a deal valued at 1.2 billion euros, including debt.
Prior to the IPO, the chairman and his two sons owned 56% of the company.They are expected to get about 60 million euros from the listing, which will raise a total of 545 million euros if the over allotment option is used.
When compared to Federico De Nora’s $2.6 billion fortune, these earnings will not be very big. According to Forbes, he is the 24th richest person in Italy.
John Elkann, a member of the Agnelli family, and Nicola Bulgari, the grandson of the founder of the luxury brand, come in second and third, respectively, after De Nora.
The company will get 200 million euros in new money, and existing shareholders, such as Snam, will get 345 million euros.
“The share sale is not to increase my net worth,” De Nora, 54, told Reuters in his first interview. He added that he plays electric guitar in a band in his spare time and gets paid in beer and sandwiches.
De Nora’s company is one of the best at making electrodes for things like rechargeable batteries. It also makes systems for filtering water and treating waste water, as well as parts for making green hydrogen.
The business owner, who stopped studying philosophy to work with his father in the family business, said that M&A activity was probably most likely to happen in the water sector.
“We are one of the three biggest players in the world when it comes to disinfecting water, and we have enough money to buy other companies to expand our product line,” said De Nora, who used to race Lamborghinis and Porsches.
“Other countries, like Australia and Saudi Arabia, are very interested in the business of hydrogen,” De Nora said.
Federico and Michele, his older brother, want to keep control of the group for a long time. One way they plan to do this is through a loyalty share programme that starts when the group is listed.
The two brothers haven’t fought about the future of the business because they agreed to take on different roles.
After taking a class at university about family businesses, Federico De Nora asked his father to change the way he and his brother owned the business. Federico became the company’s chairman, and his brother took over running the family’s money.
“It was like a magic trick,” Federico De Nora said of the deal.
($1 = 0.9507 euros)