AAA Portola plans $115m flotation

Portola plans $115m flotation

Portola Pharmaceuticals, a US-based healthcare company backed by biotech Biogen Idec before it closed its New Ventures division, plans to raise $115m in its flotation on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

Portola said it had raised $317.3m in convertible preferred stock from its investors and $167m in license fees from Biogen, Merck, Novartis, BMS and Pfizer.

Investment banks Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse are co-lead underwriters of the IPO with Cooley and Davis Polk & Wardwell as legal counsel.

The company reports $11.4m in net income on $72m in revenue for last year, compared to a $20m in net income on $78m in revenue for 2011.

In November 2011, Portola raised $89m, weeks after closing corporate venture backing from trade peer Biogen Idec.
Temasek, a Singapore state-backed investment company and Eastern Capital Limited, the family office of Kenneth Dart, chief executive of Styrofoam cup maker Dart Container, joined Portola’s $89m series D round as new investors, alongside previous backers.

In July 2008, Portola raised $60m in its series C extension round from existing and new investors, the latter including hedge fund DE Shaw and asset managers Adage Capital Management, BBT Capital Management/Apothecary Capital, Janus Capital Group and Pac-Link BioVentures.

This followed $70m in May 2007’s C round from mutual fund managers Brookside Capital, AllianceBernstein, Teachers’ Private Capital (the private investment arm of Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan) and T Rowe Price, investment bank Goldman Sachs, the Industrial Bank of Taiwan’s IBTM venture capital subsidiary and venture capital firms CIDC, Abingworth, Alta Partners, Advanced Technology Ventures, Frazier Healthcare, MPM Capital, Prospect Ventures and Sutter Hill Ventures.

Following the C round, Portola had received $50m in payments from US-based drugs peer Merck & Co and Biogen Idec agreed to provide an upfront payment of $45m, which includes $36m in cash and $9m in Portola equity.

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