JERUSALEM: Plans by Israel’s Matomy Media Group to list on the London Stock Exchange failed when it could not raise enough money from EU investors following poor performance of high-profile Internet stocks, Chief Executive Officer Ofer Druker said.
Matomy, a digital advertising firm with clients including American Express, AT&T and HSBC, said late on Thursday that it had withdrawn its projected $100m initial public offering (IPO).
“I think it is a setback not just to Matomy, but also to the LSE because if we had got in yesterday, I think other companies would have followed us into this market,” Druker said in a telephone interview from London yesterday.
He said the IPO had come at a bad time, with market sentiment poor after a recent fall in US Internet stocks such as Facebook, which has dropped 11.75 percent over the past month, and Twitter, down some 17 percent.
On top of that, the performance of Candy Crush maker King Digital Entertainment Plc, whose shares plummeted 16 percent on its market debut in New York last month, had made investors highly cautious, Druker added.
“Despite the bad sentiment ... we were able to cover the book. We got the attention and support of the top investors in the UK and the US, but we did not get the money from the EU,” he said.
Under LSE rules, Matomy needed at least 25 percent of its shares held by investors in Europe at the time of its listing.
Druker said he had hoped that market conditions would allow both primary and secondary share sales, which combined would have exceeded $100 million and helped it reach the EU ownership target.
“We understood that we needed $100m just from European investors. We were able to get $100m in all, but only $50m came from European investors and $50m from the US and Israel,” he said.
Druker said he had decided to get a London listing because initial soundings had suggested that investors there were more interested in a company like Matomy that was both growing and profitable.
Reuters
