$500 million IPO planned by West Corp to clear debts - T, GS & MS

Northern, WI 03/12/2013 (avauncer) - The phone services and call centre operator, West Corp was taken private in 2006 by Thomas H. Lee Partners LP and Quadrangle Group LLC. It is now planning on paying down its debt by making an initial public offering of $500 million. According to a filing, this offering which will include shares priced between $22 and $25. The 21.3 million shares will be managed by Goldman Sachs Group, Inc (NYSE:GS) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS). An additional 3.2 million share purchase option will be available to underwriters said the company. The proceeds of the sales will go towards the senior notes-payments of $450 million which are due in 2016.

Aiming for a comeback
This move will be a significant one for the company in that it would be the advent of its return to public markets. AT&T Inc (NYSE:T) is West Corp’s largest customer.
Almost seven years ago two buyout firms, Quadrangle and Lee had led the West Corp acquisition for close to 44 billion. This had included its debts as well. The Omaha, Nebraska-based company offers services such as automated customer-call routing, telemarketing. In addition to this it also offers services such as alerts, and conference-call hosting as well as emergency-call services. It had been founded in 1986 and had reported a $2.64 gain in revenue last year which had amounted to 5.9 percent. Its net income had dipped to $125.5 million by 1.6 percent. As of Dec 31, West Corp has a debt totalling $4 billion and $179.1 million in cash.

Shares of AT&T Inc (NYSE:T) went down by 0.22% to close at $36.60
Shares of Goldman Sachs Group, Inc (NYSE:GS) went up by 0.21% to close at $153.30
Shares of Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) went up by 0.30% to close at $23.10