Tech firm involved in iPad calls off float

By This Is Money
Updated: 05:58 EDT, 8 April 2011

A technology company involved in the production of Apple's iPad backed out of a potential £1bn flotation today amid worries over market conditions.

Big business: Edwards' vacuum pumps also used in CERN's Large Hadron Collider

Edwards Group, which develops vacuum technology used in the production of products such as flat-screen televisions, was set to float around 35% of the firm at the bottom of a 200p to 270p-a-share range.

But the West Sussex-based company said its selling shareholders - private equity firms CCMP Capital and Unitas International - were put off by uncertainty surrounding equity markets.

Edwards, which employs more than 3,000 staff, was bought 43 years ago by British Oxygen Company, later known as BOC Group, having been founded in 1919. It was then sold to CCMP and Unitas.

These were set to raise around £356m if the initial price offering (IPO) had gone through at 200p-a-share, valuing the firm at around £1bn.

The firm had been valued at £1.5bn last year.

In a short announcement confirming plans to abandon the IPO at the current time, CCMP and Unitas, who bought the company for £460m in 2007, said: 'We are delighted with the continued excellent performance of the company and management team.'

However, Edwards added it had received 'strong' interest from institutional investors. Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan Cazenove, Morgan Stanley and UBS were leading the listing.

Former Diageo chief financial officer Nick Rose was set to take up the role of chairman had the deal completed. The group reported underlying earnings of £130m for 2010, from revenues of £641m.

About one third of the company's revenues come from products launched in the last three years, and outside the electronics industry it has customers in the pharmaceuticals sector.

Edwards vacuum technology is used in the production of everything from coffee to computers and from steel to solar panels.

It also supplies vacuum pumps used to expel unwanted gases and contaminants at CERN's Large Hadron Collider on the Swiss-French border.