YPF to Issue up to $3.75bn in Stock

YPF, the Argentine subsidiary of Spain’s Repsol, filed Monday plans to raise up to $3.75bn through the sale of secondary shares. The sale is part of a long-running plan by Repsol to reduce Argentina exposure. The sale of up to 25% of the company, which values itself at roughly $15bn, will take place on both the NYSE and the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange, with up to $3.1bn of the total to be listed as ADS on the former, according to a filing with the SEC. YPF stock is very thinly traded, with only 393m shares outstanding in total, according to Dealogic. That makes this offering more akin to an IPO than a follow-on, says a banker familiar with the deal. Another ongoing divestiture process for YPF comes in the form of a sale of up to an additional 25% of its shares to the Petersen Group, an Argentine private equity consortium. Credit Suisse, UBS, Goldman and Itau are leading, with BNP acting as financial advisor to YPF. The same group, excluding UBS, is leading a $1.02bn syndication for Petersen to acquire the first 14.9% of the YPF shares.