Electra Partners announces successful Hollywood Bowl IPO

(ShareCast News) - Electra Partners has announced the successful initial public offering of its portfolio company Hollywood Bowl Group, a ten-pin bowling operator in which it owns an 85% interest.Electra said that upon admission to the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange on 21 September, Hollywood Bowl will have a market capitalisation of £240m. Based on the offer price, Electra's equity and debt investments in Hollywood Bowl have a value of £217m, an uplift of £62m on the valuation at the end of March and equivalent to a net asset value increase of 126p per share. On admission, Electra is expected to receive cash proceeds of £153m from the sale of its equity investment and the repayment of £22m of debt instruments issued by Hollywood Bowl.In addition, it will hold about 18% of the issued ordinary share capital of Hollywood Bowl with a valuation at the offer price of £42m.Bill Priestley, chief investment partner at Electra Partners, said: "This investment is a great example of Electra Partners' investment strategy in action. When we first invested two years ago our plan was to accelerate the company's growth and, together with Steve Burns and his team, this is exactly what we have done: bringing forward and expanding the company's organic growth investment programme, developing the new site pipeline, and leading the acquisition of Bowlplex."Altogether these actions have more than doubled the size of the business while transforming it into the UK market leader with multiple levers for future growth."