OREANDA-NEWS. Lenta Ltd (“Lenta” or the “Company”), one of the largest retail chains in Russia, today announces its intention to conduct an initial public offering (the “Offering”) of its ordinary shares (the “Shares”) in the form of global depositary receipts (“GDRs”) to be admitted to trading on the London Stock Exchange and Moscow Exchange.

Details of the Offering:

The Company intends to apply for the admission of the GDRs to the Official List maintained by the Financial Conduct Authority and to the London Stock Exchange pic for trading on its regulated market for listed securities through the International Order Book (the “London Admission”).

The Company also intends to apply to CJSC “MICEX Stock Exchange” for the admission of the GDRs to trading on the Moscow Exchange immediately after the London Admission.

The Offering is expected to be all-secondary with participation from all current shareholders, other than management and directors. The three major selling shareholders are TPG which holds a 49.8% stake, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) which holds a 21.5% stake, and VTB Capital Private Equity which holds an 11.7% stake. Management and directors own a 1% stake and other minority shareholders own a 15.9% stake in the Company. There will be a lock-up period of 180 days for the Company and the selling shareholders and 365 days for management and directors.

Credit Suisse, J.P. Morgan and VTB Capital are acting as joint global coordinators and joint bookrunners; Deutsche Bank and UBS Investment Bank are acting as joint bookrunners; TPG Capital BD, LLC is a co-manager. Rothschild is financial advisor to the Company.

The selling shareholders have granted the joint bookrunners an over-allotment option to purchase additional GDRs representing up to 15% of the GDRs sold in the Offering at the offer price to cover over-allotments, if any, in connection with the Offering.

Jan Dunning, Chief Executive Officer of Lenta, said:

“Our proposed offering represents a major milestone for us and comes at an exciting time in Lenta's development.

Over the past few years we have developed a distinctive, price-led hypermarket model with universal appeal and a focus on local assortment. Our efficient supply chain and standardised low-cost operating model enable us to provide customers with quality products at low prices. Our business model and flexible store formats have a proven ability to capture the growth potential in the Russian food retail market, and Lenta is now pushing ahead with a programme of store roll-out across Russia. We are already the second largest hypermarket chain with 77 hypermarkets in 45 cities and 10 supermarkets in Moscow and the Moscow region as of year-end 2013, and in 2013 alone we increased total store selling space by 35%. We now plan to double our selling space over the next three years.”