DSV sells €5 Bn worth of shares to fund DB Schenker purchase
The Danish logistics giant DSV has recently closed an equity offering securing gross proceeds of 37.3 billion Danish Krone (€5 billion), selling 26,444,523 new shares in the company. The proceeds from the offering will be used to partly finance the expected acquisition of Schenker AG from Deutsche Bahn.
The acquisition has been agreed by DSV and Deutsche Bahn for a total consideration of €14.3 billion ($15.8 billion).
However, according to a recent report by Reuters, the sale was narrowly passed by the Supervisory Board. The vote swung in favour of approving the sale ten to nine with one abstention. EVG, the railway and transport union strongly opposed the sale, with Martin Burkert, Chairman of EVG, calling it “a serious strategic mistake.”
DSV is continuing the procedure, adding that the recent offering was oversubscribed, requiring an individual allocation of new shares.
DSV said it received cornerstone commitments of $1.1 billion from BlackRock Inc., €600 million ($658.9 million) from Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments), $700 million from Capital Group, $400 million from Norges Bank Investment Management, a division of Norges Bank, 1.0 billion Danish Krone ($147.2 million) from BLS Capital Fondsmæglerselskab A/S and 500 million Danish Krone ($73.6 million) from ATP.
In its statement announcing the approval of the sale, DB said that DB Schenker, with its approximately 72,700 employees at over 1,850 locations in more than 130 countries, will be able to continue to develop in conjunction with DSV.
“Planned investments of around one billion euros in the coming years are intended to promote additional growth potential,” the company said.
