BUREAU VERITAS
Identification
Bureau Veritas is No. 2 worldwide in providing compliance evaluation and certification services applied to the quality, safety, health, environment and social responsibility fields. The group's activity consists of inspecting, analyzing, auditing, and certifying products, assets (buildings, industrial infrastructures, equipment, ships, etc.) and management systems (primarily ISO standards) compared to regulatory or volunteering reference standards. Net sales break down by activity as follows:
- industry and infrastructures (68.8%): analysis and control of hygiene, safety and environment, inspection and certification of industrial equipment, verification of construction compliance, certification of management systems,
- consumer goods (13.6%);
- marine (11.9%): inspection and classification of ships;
- services for governments and international commerce (5.7%).
- At the end of 2009, the group owns a network of 747 offices and 181 laboratories throughout the world.
- Net sales are distributed geographically as follows: France (26%), Europe/Middle East/Africa (34%), Asia/Pacific (25%) and Americas (15%).
Operation
Global Placement and Open Price Offer
Global Placement procedure - Number of shares: 22,348,413 shares at the maximum representing 90% of the Offer (before extension option exercise and excluding the over allotment option) - Book runners: BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank AG, Goldman Sachs International, HSBC France, Société Générale Open Price Offer procedure - Subscription open for Retail investors, legal entities, certain UCITS, investment clubs and associations - Number of shares offered: 2,483,157 shares at the minimum representing 10% of the Offer (before increase option and over-allotment option exercice). The allocation of purchase shares between the OPO and the Global Placement will depend on the nature and the size of the demand.
Admission on Eurolist by Euronext:
- a maximum of 120,275,670 shares that will constitute the outstanding capital of BUREAU VERITAS after the restruturing transactions, and,
- a maximum of 1,150,000 new shares from capital increases reserved for employees and for managers of the group.
Information relating to the numbers of shares are given after taking into account the 10 to 1 split in the nominal value of the BUREAU VERITAS shares which should occur on the date of the listing of the company's shares on 23 October 2007.
A maximum of 24,831,570 existing shares, before increase option and over-allotment option exercise, will be offered to public by the way of a Global Placement and an Open Price Offer (OPO).
Increase option: Depending on the demand, the number of shares offered could be raised by a maximum of 3,724,735 shares.
Green shoe option: Wendel will grant the underwriters with an over-allotment option of 15% of the initial offering (after potential exercice of the increase option) ie 4,283,445 shares maximum.
- Period of the Placement: from October 9, 2007 to October 22, 2007 (20:00, except in case of early closing) - Period of the Offer: from October 9, 2007 to October 22, 2007 (17:00 and 20:00 for orders placed by Internet) - First quotation: October 23, 2007 - Beginning of trading: October 24, 2007
BNP PARIBAS
DEUTSCHE BANK AG
GOLDMAN SACHS INTERNATIONAL
HSBC FRANCE
SOCIETE GENERALE