Float to net insurance firm founder £20m

Catlin's £700m offer heads bevy of IPOs; Biotech, hi-tech and furniture groups line up listings

Stephen Catlin, who founded an insurance company 20 years ago with just £25,000, yesterday announced plans to float his business, which is now worth £700m. A series of other listings were announced yesterday, showing confidence of a renewed appetite for public offerings.

The float will value the 49-year-old Mr Catlin's stake in the Catlin Group at £20m. "I needed to borrow £15,000 from the bank to set up the business. I had a mortgage of £40,000, I was earning £20,000 and had a wife and child to support, so it was amazing the bank even lent me the money. We had to share a photocopier with the people next to us at Lloyd's and it took us about two years to afford a fax machine," Mr Catlin said yesterday.

He said there was investor demand for strong insurance companies and that the business had grown to such a size that it needed more funds to continue to grow. It raised $482m (£264m) of private equity in 2002 and plans to raise up to $350m when listing.

The company, which operates in the Lloyd's of London market as well as Bermuda and the UK, yesterday announced its full-year results, which showed a 66 per cent increase in premiums to $1.2bn. It has assets of $2.4bn and is expected to be worth between £700m and £800m when it floats.

Separately, Ark Therapeutics yesterday became the biggest IPO in the biotech sector for more than three years, raising £55m in a flotation that values it at £168m. Its shares, priced in the middle of the range at 133p and three times subscribed, closed at 135p.

Although loss-making, Ark has four products in or ready for the last stage of human trials, including a treatment to slow the growth of brain tumours. The company also has a product on the market, a medical boot used as a dressing for foot and leg ulcers. Merlin Biosciences, the venture capital group run by the biotech veteran Sir Christopher Evans, has a 27 per cent stake which it has agreed not to sell for six months.

The performance of Ark shares, particularly when unconditional dealing begins next week, will be watched closely by other private biotechs, several of which are expected to push the button on their own flotations if Ark does not disappoint.

Elsewhere, the financial software supplier Attentiv Systems yesterday said it would launch a £30m float on the Alternative Investment Market by the end of March, while Moneybox, a cash machine operator valued at about £85m, is also looking to list this month. They will be followed by Omega International, a maker of kitchen units, which is looking to raise about £10m in a float in April or May that is expected to value it at up to £30m.