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Earlier this week, Swiss daily Tages-Anzeiger (“Tagi”) reported on rumours about a possible IPO of Zurich based trading house DKSH, stating that the program for the roadshows with potential investors was about to be finalised.

DKSH, which very actively promotes “Market Expansion Services” as its core service offering, has activities in the distribution of chemicals through the Performance Materials division headed by Mario Preissler (net sales in 2010 ca. CHF 660 mn or 9.1% of the group total).

The Tagi article cited “own research” as the source for the news and also stated that requests for comments on the research results, made to DKSH, were turned down by the company yesterday.

DKSH (short for Diethelm Keller Siber Hegner after the merger of two trading houses with main sales activities in Southeast Asia and Japan some ten years ago) is controlled by majority shareholder Diethelm Keller Group, a Swiss holding company where the respective families have bundled their investments (ca. 60%). In 2008 DKSH expanded its shareholder structure, which now also includes FFP Group, the holding company of the French Peugeot industrialist family, and Swiss investor Rainer-Marc Frey, who acquired just over 10% each. Swiss industrialist Stephan Schmidheiny, through his family office, joined as the third new investor, holding less than 10% according to a statement on the DKSH web-site. Smaller shareholders, including management currently hold less than 10% of the equity.

 

 

Source: Tages-Anzeiger web-site www.tagesanzeiger.ch; DKSH web-site www.dksh.com

 

HGE – DCG / 02.02.2012