Reid & Taylor's $250 mn IPO by year-end

S Kumars Nationwide Ltd (SKNL)'s premium menswear subsidiary Reid & Taylor plans to hit the market with its $250 million initial public offering (IPO) by end 2010 and is in the process of filing its Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) with market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) by end-this month, a top company official said.



"We plan to come out with our IPO for Reid & Taylor by end-2010. We are eyeing up to $250 million through this IPO and plan to file our DRHP with SEBI by end-this month," SKNL Managing Director & Vice-Chairman, Nitin Kasliwal said.

Reid & Taylor is 75% owned by SKNL while the balance is held by Singapore's GIC, a sovereign fund.

Post-issue, SKNL's holding will come down to around 60% while GIC proposes to off-load around 3% to 4% through the IPO, Mr Kasliwal said.
The IPO proceeds will be used to fuel its growth and retire a part of SKNL's debt, he said.

The textile major has already appointed seven bankers for the IPO. These are JP Morgan, UBS, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, JM Financial, Edelweiss and Antique.

Reid & Taylor posted a turnover and profit after tax (PAT) of Rs984.94 crore and Rs202.94 crore, respectively, in FY2010.
The group's consolidated debt stood at Rs2,800 crore and Mr Kasliwal said that it is proposed to retire around Rs400 crore debt with the IPO proceeds.

At 2.35 pm, S Kumars Nationwide was trading at Rs80.20, up by 1.01%, with a volume of 1.12 lakh shares on the BSE.