Basingstoke: HRG flotation aided by PwC

Southampton played a key role in the complex £180 million flotation of a flagship company in Hampshire.

The stock market appearance of the Hogg Robinson Group (HRG), which valued the international corporate services company at £275m, was aided by the south coast office of business advisers PricewaterhouseCoopers.

HRG group finance director John Kennerley paid tribute to PwC’s Transactions Services team at Ocean Village in Southampton. It was regarded as a complex flotation, particularly in view of the number of countries where HRG has operations and on which it needed to report.

Becky Bridgen, who heads up the Transaction Services team at Ocean Village, where PwC has more than 350 staff, said: “This was a complicated piece of work which required the use of our deal specialists around the world, with teams reporting in from across Europe, America and Asia.

“There were a number of important business issues to report, which included the change in HRG’s business model and, as with most transactions, pension issues were a key focus.

“The project highlighted PwC’s unique ability to access a worldwide network of deal and other technical specialists and draw from our extensive listings knowledge.”

HRG, which has its head office in Basingstoke, plans to use the

proceeds from the flotation to further expand business operations,

refinance its debt and make a one-off payment into its pension fund.

The group employs more than 6,500 people across the world and the HRG worldwide network operates in 96 countries.