ALD completes €1.2-bn capital increase

ALD has successfully increased its €1.2-billion capital increase – an important milestone on the road to its acquisition of LeasePlan, which is expected to close in Q1 2023. Tim Albertsen (pictured), CEO of ALD, is “delighted with the success of our rights issue, which was largely oversubscribed.”

The capital increase was announced at the end of last month. On 29 November, we published an in-depth analysis of the announcement. On 2 December, Fleet Europe published an exclusive Q&A with ALD CEO Tim Albertsen on the topic. 

The subscription period for the new shares ran from 2 to 13 December, inclusive. The rights issue was available in France only. The final gross proceeds of the rights issue, including the issue premium, amounts to approximately €1.2 billion, corresponding to the issuance of more than 161.6 million new shares, each with a par value of €1.5, at a subscription price of €7.5. 

Oversubscription rate

At the end of the subscription period, the total demand was for almost 202.2 million shares, for an amount close to €1.5 billion. That corresponds to an oversubscription rate of around 125%, and around 175% when excluding the subscription amount of Société Générale. 

As promised before the capital increase, Société Générale – the majority shareholder in ALD – participated for around €803 million in the rights issue, which represents around 66% of the right issue. 

Following the closure of the rights issue, ALD’s share capital (and share of voting rights) are distributed as follows:

• Société Générale: 75.9% (around 429.7 million shares)
• Treasury shares: 0.2% (around 1.2 million shares)
• Free float: 23.9% (around 135 million shares)

Share capital

The volume of free float shares has increase by four percentage points, while the value of the free float has increased by around 50%. 

In the context of the acquisition of LeasePlan (and subject to remaining approvals and conditions), around 251 million shares will be issued to LeasePlan shareholders, which will lead to a distributions of ALD share capital as follows:

• Société Générale: 52.6%
• LeasePlan shareholders: 30.75%
• Free float: 16.5%

However, assuming the full exercise of the warrants granted to LeasePlan’s shareholders, Société Générale will end up holding around 51% of the new combined entity’s share capital upon closing of the acquisition, and LeasePlan’s shareholders will have 32.9%. Société Générale has expressed its intention to remain the long-term majority shareholder of ALD.