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Pru rolls out Egg IPO
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May 25, 2000: 4:01 a.m. ET
Internet bank valued at up to $2.1B as British insurer goes ahead with listing
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LONDON (CNNfn) - Britain's Prudential announced Thursday it will press ahead with a sale of at least 18 percent of its Egg Internet bank in an initial public offering that values the online firm at up to £1.4 billion ($2.1 billion).
Egg will be offered to investors at between 130 pence and 175 pence per share. Prudential plans to raise about £150 million from the offering. Egg will issue a mini-prospectus on its Web site Friday.
The valuation of between £1.1 billion and £1.4 billion is less than half that which analysts gave the company at the peak of the Internet wave only a few months ago.
Wednesday Prudential said it would go ahead with the offering despite the recent decline in technology stocks, after saying earlier in the week that it was reviewing the floatation. A raft of IPOs have been canceled in London this week, although none had the same profile or size as Egg.
Analysts told CNNfn the market attitude is likely to get worse before it gets better. "From now until the end of August it will be difficult to get anything done," cautioned Peter Misek, Internet, media and technology analyst at Chase H&Q in London.
Egg also unveiled its new board of directors Thursday, adding four non-executive directors, two of whom are independent of Prudential. The company recently shuffled its top management, bringing former JP Morgan executive Roberto Mendoza onto the board as non-executive chairman.
Shares in Prudential (PRU), Britain's largest insurer, rose 5 percent to 988 pence early Thursday. 
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