Bankers scramble for the next Redox after $1.3b float

afr.com:

Chemicals distributor Redox’s $1.3 billion initial public offering on Monday was the first ASX listing north of $100 million in more than a year, leaving bankers hopeful the deal will coax more floats from Australia’s capital markets pipeline.

The founding family members, who remain majority shareholders, touted Redox’s profitability, its debt-free balance sheet and an overseas expansion story to raise $402 million. Redox shares closed 5 per cent below their $2.55 offer price, providing a timely reminder of the volatile nature of equity markets, and that the window to go public is not open to any candidate.

Redox chief executive Raimond Coneliano said taking the 58-year-old chemicals distributor public was like an “out-of-body experience”. Dominic Lorrimer

“One issue has been that for many fund managers, to some extent in the small-cap space, there are plenty of attractive stocks in the market rather than to look at a new IPO,” said Karl Morris, chief executive at Ord Minnett, who worked on the deal alongside UBS. Mr Morris, however, said the window to IPO could open at the appropriate price for any company “in an attractive industry with good management”.

Established by the Coneliano family in 1965 in Minto in Sydney’s south-west, Redox has grown to be Australia’s largest distributor of chemicals and ingredients to clients in crop protection, food and beverage, nutrition, paint and plastics sectors. Chief executive Raimond Coneliano said few people knew about Redox, but its exposure to staple industries like drinking water and lithium batteries helped it tell a growth story to investors.

“We are not drunken sailors splashing too much money around,” he said, adding Redox had “deleveraged” and an IPO enabled it to “target