By Katy Burne
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said it plans to sell six million
shares in its specialty lender as the New York firm gears up to
list the two-year-old unit in the coming weeks.
The firm has already begun pitching shares to potential
investors, a person familiar with the matter said. In an
announcement late Tuesday, Goldman said it would offer the shares
in Goldman Sachs BDC Inc., but didn't detail the proposed price or
date for the initial public offering.
Goldman unveiled the lender in early 2013 as a so-called
business-development company, a type of tax-advantaged entity that
is managed similarly to mutual funds, with a finite number of
shares that can trade privately or publicly on stock exchanges.
At the time, Goldman was the first bank to launch a BDC. Since
then, Credit Suisse Group AG has introduced one and Morgan Stanley
also is considering one, as reported in The Wall Street
Journal.
The moves come as researchers at Goldman predicated regulation
would "continue to shift activities from banks to non-banks" and
that nontraditional lenders could eat into $11 billion worth of the
$150 billion in annual profits across the banking system over the
coming years.
Shares in Goldman BDC have been approved for trading on the New
York Stock Exchange under ticker symbol "GSBD." The lender is
targeting U.S. borrowers with no credit ratings and earnings by one
measure of between $5 million and $75 million annually.
Goldman plans to manage the listing alongside joint book-runners
Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Credit
Suisse AG and Wells Fargo Securities. Raymond James and SunTrust
Robinson Humphrey will co-manage the offering.
Underwriters may also be granted an option to purchase up to
900,000 additional shares of the BDC's stock in the IPO, Goldman
said.
Write to Katy Burne at katy.burne@wsj.com
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