Australia’s Wesfarmers Ltd (WES.AX) is hoping to raise as much as A$1.5 billion ($1.12 billion) by spinning out its Officeworks stationary division in an initial public offering, a broker who saw the float’s marketing materials said on Monday.
The valuation – described by James McGlew, executive director of stockbroker Argonaut, as a “bull-market set of numbers” – comes a decade after Wesfarmers purchased the then-struggling office supplies network as part of its A$19.3 billion takeover of supermarket chain Coles.
Officeworks’ earnings have nearly doubled in the meantime.
Perth-based Wesfarmers, a retail-to-mining conglomerate and Australia’s top company by sales, had said in February it was considering an IPO for Officeworks. But the distribution of research reports to investors on Monday offered the first indication of the company’s price hopes.
The reports from bankers JP Morgan, Macquarie and UBS valued the office supplies, stationary and technology retailer at between A$1 billion and A$1.5 billion, McGlew told Reuters.
