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Telenor airs Nasdaq IPO
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November 10, 2000: 8:40 a.m. ET
Norwegian telecom company adds U.S. issue; set for total value up to $13B
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LONDON (CNNfn) - Norway's state-owned telecom operator Telenor AS said Friday it will add a Nasdaq market listing to its planned domestic initial public offering, wading into a soured market for telecom stocks with an IPO that is expected to value the company as high as $12.9 billion.
The sale of new shares representing 21 percent of the expanded Telenor will be Norway's largest ever privatisation, raising up to 25.3 billion crowns ($2.74 billion). The sale is expected to give the company a total valuation of between 89 billion and 120 billion Norwegian crowns, including the impact of extra shares to be sold if demand is high, the company said.
Telenor said it was worth between 70 billion and 95 billion crowns before taking account of the new shares the government will sell. The company will be listed on the Nasdaq under the symbol "TELN."
Estimates of Telenor's market value have fallen significantly. In May, analysts believed the company would fetch 200 billion crowns, while predictions last month put the phone operator's likely capitalization between 112 billion and 160 billion crowns.
Mobile arm shuns Swiss auction
The announcement of the IPO came on the day Swiss officials said Telenor's mobile-phone unit, Telenor Mobile Communications, was one of three potential bidders to drop out of the auction of next-generation mobile-phone licenses in Switzerland. That narrowed the field for the four available licences to five contenders.
To stimulate demand for the issue among Norwegian individuals, the government will offer private investors a discount of two crowns per share and will award a free bonus share for every 10 bought.
Telenor will also have a mandate for a new issue corresponding to 10 percent of its capital after six months. In the first issue, the state will create 370 million new shares to offer for sale. There are currently 1.4 billion Telenor shares.
Goldman Sachs and DnB Markets are coordinating the offering.
Telenor's IPO comes after the firm's embarrassing failure to combine with Sweden's Telia to create a major Scandinavian player in the telecom industry. An agreement to merge, reached last 1999, collapsed acrimoniously in December amid claims of national partisanship. Sweden sold shares in Telia in June. 
-- from staff and wire reports
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Telenor
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