French IT consultancy and services company Valtech SA will debut on the Nouveau Marche exchange in Paris on April 12, following an initial public offering that is expected to raise some FFr40m ($6.5m) and value the company at around FFr160m ($26m).
Eric Mouilleron, Valtech director and presently managing director of the companyÆs UK operation, said the Paris-based company specializes in project architecture and delivery, as well as re-skilling, in the areas of Java, Corba and internet-related technologies in general.
The company typically takes on projects that require only a small team of consultants, say between five and 12, working with the customerÆs own staff. It only targets the big corporates and its current client list includes France Telecom, UKÆs Barclays Bank, and Finnish telecoms equipment giant, Nokia Oy.
Valtech was founded in 1993 and currently operates eight offices in five countries – France, the US, UK, Sweden and Switzerland. Its revenues totaled FFr98.3m ($16m) in 1998 and, for this year, it is expecting FFr163m ($26.6m), said Mouilleron. The IPO involves a total of 1.03m shares, of which 830,000 are new and the remainder existing ones, and the price range for bookbuilding was set at 6.4-7.35 euros ($6.88-$7.90).
The final price will be set on April 1, and Mouilleron said at the end of last week that, give the demand encountered so far, the likelihood was for it be set at the upper end of the range. He said that Valtech had removed the UK from the countries in which it is offering shares (those left are France, Belgium and Switzerland), because it felt that the number of shares being offered was too small for another market.
Valtech intends to use the funds raised to finance its growth, much of it through acquisitions. The country managers in each market have a shopping list, and acquisitions will start to take place shortly after the IPO, said Mouilleron. He added that Valtech will not be seeking acquisitions in countries outside its existing network for the time being.
One acquisition actually pre-dated the offering, Valtech acquiring Dallas, Texas-based consultancy firm Expede Inc. They brought us their experience in project delivery, which is an area weÆre beginning to develop more now, he said.
