NEW YORK-Following similar moves a few weeks earlier by Spain’s Telefonica Moviles and Telekom Austria, Telenor ASA of Norway had to discount its initial public offering in order to get the deal sold Dec. 4.
In a transaction lead managed by Goldman Sachs & Co., the Oslo-based carrier raised about $1.68 billion by selling 124.1 million shares of common stock on Nasdaq at a price of $13.56 each.
In its original Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Telenor had listed an expected price of $16.85-$21.25 per share. However, it lowered the anticipated range Dec. 1 to $13.56-$14.85.
The company said it will use net proceeds primarily to repay outstanding debt and to make acquisitions and strategic investments.
At the conclusion of the initial public offering, the Norwegian government owns 79 percent of Telenor.
Because the public equity markets have grown noticeably less receptive to telecommunications carrier offerings lately, several other European operators have postponed planned IPOs for their wireless units: the KPN Mobile unit of Royal KPN of The Netherlands; Orange plc, the British wireless provider owned by France Telecom; Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile International.
