John Laing, British developer and operator of privately financed, public sector infrastructure projects, is expected to announce its £1bn stock market float on Monday.
The initial public offering will be the first major flotation of 2015 on the London Stock Exchange. It will allow the company to generate funds to expand internationally.
John Laing has a prominent position in Britain’s public-private partnership field. Some of the major projects that John Laing is responsible for include the Severn river crossing and Liverpool’s new Alder Hey children’s hospital.
Internationally the company is building highways in Denver and Florida, prisons in New Zealand, and wind farms across Europe.
According to Sky News, Jeremy Beeton, who was director-general of the Government Olympic Executive, will be appointed as a non-executive director to join the board of John Laing.
Olivier Brousse, John Laing’s new chief executive, says that the company’s shares will attract investors because of the vast opportunities of exporting the public-private partnership (PPP) worldwide.
The Second Severn Crossing built by John Laing.
Brousse told The Times last month that there is a lot of interest in John Laing because of the potential to scale it up.
“For us it is about getting more funds to grow the business — 2015 will bring the answer and then we can decide on new sectors and new countries.”
The US market was described by Brousse as being “our new frontier”.
John Laing used to be a public company until it was acquired by Henderson Private Equity in December 2006. However, Henderson has been exploring an exit for a while now.
RBC is advising John Laing on the flotation and HSBC and Barclays are acting as book runners for the deal.
