Tower International, Inc. announced its plan for an initial public offering of up to $100 million of common stock. Livonia, Michigan-based Tower is a manufacturer of engineered structural metal components and assemblies primarily serving automotive original equipment manufacturers.
On August 3, 2007, an affiliate of Cerberus Capital Management, L.P. acquired 80% of the Chrysler division from DaimlerChrysler Corp.
Prior to this offering, the company will convert to a Delaware corporation and will change name from Tower Automotive, LLC to Tower International, Inc. and all of its outstanding capital stock will be owned by Tower International Holdings, LLC, a newly formed entity controlled by Cerberus.
Controlling stockholder Cerberus owned $403.9 million of Tower's first lien term loan and all of $27.5 million letter of credit facility.
Tower plans to use the offering proceeds to retire indebtedness, and also for working capital, other general corporate purposes. The company neither disclosed details about number shares to be offered, nor its estimated price range.
For the year ended December 31, 2009, the company incurred loss available to common stockholders of $84.0 million, versus a loss of $67.3 million in 2008. Revenues for the year fell to $1.63 billion from $2.17 billion in 2008.
Tower depends on major vehicle manufacturers for its revenues. According to the filing, during 2009, Volkswagen AG (VOW), Fiat SpA (FIATY.PK) and Ford Motor Co. (F) accounted for 17%, 13% and 13% of Tower's revenues, respectively.
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