Carlyle Plans Travel Agent Selldown

The Carlyle Group plans to float a portion of travel services provider CVC Brasil Operadora e Agencia de Viagens, according to a prospectus announcing an all-secondary share IPO. CVC, 63% controlled by the US private equity group, had been expected to be among this year’s Bovespa debutants, though the success of deals sitting in the Brazilian pipeline has been made less clear due to recent volatility. As it is just the initial filing, CVC does not yet indicate the size or timing of the deal, to be led by BAML, BTG Pactual, Itau, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley. It recorded BRL120m in Ebitda in 1H2011, up from BRL116m in the corresponding period of 2010, and booked BRL269m for the full year 2010. CVC was founded in 1972, with Carlyle entering in 2009. The Bovespa has suffered as much as any of the world’s falling equity indexes in the past few days, adding to bankers’ expectations of reduced volume. It will be particularly challenging for IPOs and for small and mid cap offerings, bankers say. The possibilities for follow-ons and for larger-cap offerings, are somewhat better, though most of the rumored and filed names in Brazil are on the smaller end of the continuum. In Colombia, large-cap Ecopetrol’s COP2.5trn ($1.4bn) domestic-only sale suffered a snag when secondary levels dipped below the COP3,700 per share offering price Monday.