Ashmore Throws in IPO Towel

Ashmore Energy International (AEI) has pulled its IPO on the NYSE, blaming market conditions. The Houston-headquartered holding company, most of whose assets are in LatAm, was most recently scheduled to price its offer on October 28. AEI and its underwriters Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse appear to have scrambled in vain to try and make the deal more appealing to investors. On Thursday, it refiled a prospectus with new deal terms, including scrapping all secondary share sales, thereby cutting the volume to $233m from an estimated $900m when the process started. The last ditch effort at an IPO involved the sale of 20m primary shares at $12.00-$13.00. In the previous week, it had indicated plans to sell 50m shares, 33m from existing investors including Goldman, GIC, Eton Park and BlackRock. Proceeds from the primary shares were earmarked for repayment of debt, of which AEI has $238m denominated in revolving credit facilities, according to the prospectus. In addition to Goldman and Credit Suisse, Citi and JPMorgan were joint books on the deal. AEI has assets in Brazil (36%), Colombia (35%), Peru (4%) and Chile (3%).