MasterCard announces intention to trade on NYSE, to issue IPO worth $2.45 billion |
|
|
Published
:
Sat, 17 Sep 2005 00:35
|
NEW YORK - The No 2 credit card Company in the United States, MasterCard Inc is all set to debut on the New York Stock Exchange. The company has planned an initial public offering expected to bring in $2.45 billion.
MasterCard is planning to release 61.5 million shares in what is undoubtedly the biggest public offering in recent times. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is arranging the sale of what will be 46 percent of the total stock in MasterCard. The company announced its intentions yesterday in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. However, no terms of the offering have been made public yet. About 1,400 banks that issue its cards own MasterCard. The move to go public may have been as a result of the many lawsuits that the company has been slapped with in recent times. Some of the suits allege that MasterCard was creating a monopoly for itself and was fixing the prices that are charged to merchants. This is a strong violation of anti-trust laws, the suit contends. A couple of years ago MasterCard and Visa had settled similar claims for $ 3 billion.
MasterCard acknowledged that it was this growing hostility that had forced its hand to issue an IPO. "We believe that a more open ownership and governance structure should leave us less prone to challenges and provide us with additional defenses to the challenges we may face. We believe regulators and others will recognize these changes and the increased openness they bring to our governance and ownership," it said in a statement. The company said that following the IPO, investors would own between 46 percent and 49 percent of its equity and 82 to 83 percent of its voting power.
MasterCard's move towards the NYSE will bring intense pressure on the leader in the credit card market, Visa to follow suit. "Visa is always thinking about the range of choices we might make in our business and organization that would allow us to continue to deliver maximum value to our stakeholders," a Visa spokesman said on Thursday.
MasterCard will trade on the NYSE under the symbol "MA".
|
|
|
|
|
|
Print this Story
