Blow for evonik owners: borsengang falls flat

This was decided on monday by the board of trustees of the main owner, the RAG foundation (74.99 percent of the shares), in agreement with the minority owner, CVC capital partners. Investors had demanded discounts of 25 percent or more because of the uncertain situation in the euro zone, foundation head wilhelm bonse-geuking told the dpa news agency. "A quarter of the value – that was not in it."

The RAG foundation wants to wait at least a year and a half before making a new start on the borsengang. "Before autumn next year – september, october 2013 – there is no thought of a borsengang," bonse-geuking told the "financial times deutschland" (tuesday edition). The prerequisite, however, is that the confidence of investors in the euro zone has returned.

The evonik owners and the banks had spoken with up to 2,000 investors. In the past week, 60 major investors had been approached in a concentrated effort – but the proceeds had simply not been enough. "It would have been a bargain price, but the price was just too low for us," said bonse-geuking.

According to unconfirmed reports, the owners had set a valuation target of 15 billion euros for evonik. This value has clearly been missed, he said. The proceeds of the evonik borsengang are to be used mainly to cover the so-called eternity liabilities of the german hard coal mining industry when the claim in germany is terminated at the end of 2018. In addition, the permanent pumping of water in the former mining areas pays.

The foundation could easily cover the required sum of around 220 million euros a year through its dividend income from evonik – around 300 million euros a year, said bonse-geuking. In addition, there were the capital transfers from about 1.6 billion euros of assets. "We have more than adequate liquidity and no time pressure at all."

The borsengang had already been suspended twice before monday’s decision – most recently in the fall of last year. Bonse-geuking defended the decision in march 2012 to restart preparations anyway. The reasons for this were the good business outlook for the company and the unexpectedly positive development of the capital markets. According to its statutes, the foundation is obligated to strive for the borsengang. This is intended to spread the income more widely.