Bryan, Garnier & Co, the European Growth investment bank successfully led the the secondary placement of a EUR 13M holding of 21 Investimenti in Stedim, a Euronext-listed company

Bryan, Garnier & Co (bryangarnier.com), the pan-European independent investment bank focusing on European growth companies, announced today that it successfully completed the secondary placement of a EUR 13M holding of 21 Investimenti in Stedim (Eurolist Paris FR0000053266), a leading manufacturer of equipments and supplies for the healthcare and biotech industries. This transaction was carried out with over ten first tier institutional investors, confirming the financial community’s interest for high growth companies in healthcare.

Greg Revenu, Managing Director of the Corporate Finances activities at Bryan, Garnier & Co commented: “The present transaction is a further illustration of Bryan, Garnier’s capacity to provide liquidity and successful exit to the historical shareholders of emerging growth listed companies with limited liquidity, such as such as founders or venture capital funds. Such transactions require a particular know-how, combining a strong industry expertise, an active presence on the European capital markets and a private placement capacity. This approach enables us to provide efficient liquidity solutions to major historical shareholders.”

With this operation, Bryan, Garnier & Co Corporate Finance reinforces its position as a specialist of secondary placements and PIPE transactions in Europe
Benoit Bouche, Managing Director in charge of Healthcare commented “Stedim has been a very successful company, with a strong innovation capacity and an ability to manage an aggressive internal and external growth strategy. Stedim will now benefit from an increased float and new investors, which will improve the market of the stock. This transaction confirm Bryan, Garnier’s growing position as the European investment bank for healthcare high-growth companies.”

During the second quarter of 2005, Byran Garnier & Co announced the closing of two other placements in healthcare, as sole manager for a 7 Eur m private placement for MAPI, and Lead Manager and Sole Book-Runner of a EUR35 million follow on offering for Transgene. In the TMT space, this quarter also included the closing of a Eur 31 million PIPE for Carrere Group and the firm is acting as sole manager of a Eur 6 m follow-on public offering for CAST.

During the last five years, Bryan, Garnier & Co successfully executed several of the leading private placement transactions in Europe, in particular in the technology, media and telecoms (TMT) and healthcare sectors. These operations were carried out for listed and private companies with a broad range of finance structures. Private placements are able to provide a solution in light of the market fund raising hurdles generated by a reduced liquidity or a limited analysts coverage, which generally imply a higher level of due diligence by the investors. This explains the increasing presence of the alternative investors, such as the capital venture funds, on this type of transaction in Europe.