Rosenblatt hopes to raise £43m on its initial public offering (IPO), a week after announcing its listing on the London Stock Exchange.
The funds will be raised through the placing of 36.8m new ordinary shares and 8.4m existing ordinary shares at a price of 95p per share, anticipating a market capitalisation of approximately £76m.
The £43m target would make it the biggest UK law firm IPO so far, surpassing Gateley, which raised £30m in 2015. When Keystone and Gordon Dadds listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) last year, they raised gross proceeds of £15m and £20m respectively.
The London Stock Exchange filing reveals that Rosenblatt’s founder and senior partner Ian Roseblatt, will find his shares more than halving from 59 per cent to 21 per cent following the admission. Cascades, a trust company and the only other previous significant shareholder, has had its stake drop from 26 per cent to 14 per cent. New shareholders have stepped in to slice up the rest between themselves, with Milton Asset Management gaining 15.8 per cent, Fidelity Investments 6.6 per cent, Blackrock 6 per cent and Canaccord Genuity Group 3.6 per cent.
An inside source at an IPO firm said that they were “gobsmacked” that Rosenblatt had taken the decision to float. “It only makes sense for new-model type firms like Keystone, which don’t have a lot of legacy hanging on. It boils down to management and with a traditional firm, the distributory ownership structure makes it difficult to IPO, as everyone has to agree on everything. Lawyers are not financial people and are not interested in the nitty-gritty of business,” they said.
The Lawyer reported that 2018 will see more deals, as for certain firms acknowledging the successes of Keystone and Gordon Dadds, tapping the public markets is more attractive than ever. For mid-market firms plugging away at mid-level work, the opportunity is becoming increasingly tangible.
Keystone Law disclosed its first set of financial results since its IPO at the end of April, posting a 24 per cent uplift in revenue to £31.6m for the 2017 financial year.
Gordon Dadds became a listed law firm in July 2017, following a share offer by Work Group and raised £20m via a placing, with the proceeds used to repay borrowings (which then stood at £3.5m), fund acquisitions and provide working capital.
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