The WisdomTree Crowd Counts Down to an $81M Offering
Reported by Neil Anderson, Managing Editor
WisdomTree (WETF on the Nasdaq) and its backers are about to raise $80.6 million thanks to a secondary offering. In October the New York City-based ETF provider filed an S-1 with the SEC to sell up to one million shares [see MFWire.com, 10/17/2011], and yesterday WisdomTree revealed the pricing of that offering, which now includes 13.4 million shares from existing shareholders, too, and could fire off as soon as this coming Wednesday, February 8 [filing].
The price for the offering is slated to be $5.61 per share, WisdomTree's closing price yesterday.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley are still listed as the joint book-running managers for the offering, supported by Barclays Capital, Citigroup, Piper Jaffray, Sandler O'Neill, Sterne Agee and UBS. $4.0 million in discounts and commissions will go to the underwriters.
WisdomTree would raise $5.3 million from the offering, before expenses, while its existing shareholders would raise $71.2 million. The biggest sellers, besides WisdomTree itself, will be: CEO Jonathan Steinberg, selling 3.1 million shares for $17.4 million; chairman Michael Steinhardt, selling 3.0 million shares for $16.9 million; S Family Partners, L.P. selling 2.3 million shares for $12.9 million; and director James Robinson, the Flexpoint Fund, L.P. and "entities affiliated with RRE Ventures, LLC" selling 1.7 million shares each, for $9.7 million each. The general partner of S Family Partners is Steinhardt's spouse, RRE is affiliated with Robinson, and Flexpoint Ford is a private equity group.
Company Press Release
NEW YORK, Feb 2, 2012 -- WisdomTree Investments, Inc., an exchange-traded fund sponsor and asset manager, today announced that it priced its underwritten public offering of 14,362,251 shares of its common stock at $5.61 per share, before underwriting discounts and commissions.
The offering includes 1,000,000 shares offered by the company and 13,362,251 shares offered by certain selling stockholders of WisdomTree. WisdomTree intends to use the net proceeds from the shares it is offering for working capital and general corporate purposes. The company will not receive any proceeds from sales by the selling stockholders. The underwriters have a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 2,154,336 shares from certain selling stockholders at the public offering price, less underwriting discounts and commissions.
BofA Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley are acting as joint book-running managers for the offering. Barclays Capital, Citigroup, UBS Investment Bank, Piper Jaffray, Sandler O'Neill + Partners, L.P., and Sterne Agee are acting as co-managers for the offering.
A registration statement on Form S-1 relating to this offering was declared effective by the Securities and Exchange Commission on February 2, 2012. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.
The offering may be made only by means of a prospectus. When available, a copy of the prospectus may be obtained from: BofA Merrill Lynch, Attn: Prospectus Department, 4 World Financial Center, New York, NY 10080, Email: dg.prospectus_requests@baml.com; and Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, Attn: Prospectus Department, 180 Varick Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10014, Tel: 866-718-1649, Email: prospectus@morganstanley.com.
About WisdomTree
WisdomTree Investments, Inc. is a New York-based exchange-traded fund ("ETF") sponsor and asset manager. WisdomTree currently offers 47 ETFs across Equities, Currency Income, Fixed Income and Alternatives asset classes. WisdomTree also licenses its indexes to third parties for proprietary products and promotes the use of WisdomTree ETFs in 401(k) plans. WisdomTree currently has approximately $13.9 billion in ETF assets under management.
WisdomTree(R) is the marketing name for WisdomTree Investments, Inc. and its wholly owned subsidiaries WisdomTree Asset Management, Inc. and WisdomTree Retirement Services, Inc. WisdomTree Asset Management, Inc. is a registered investment advisor and is the investment advisor to the WisdomTree Trust and the WisdomTree ETFs. The WisdomTree Trust is a registered open-end investment company. Each WisdomTree ETF is a series of the WisdomTree Trust. WisdomTree Retirement Services, Inc. supports the use of the WisdomTree ETFs in retirement plans by financial professionals.
The WisdomTree Investments, Inc. logo is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=11269
Subscribe to MFWire.com's News Alerts [click]
Email & Route 
Print 
Raw XML
