The Firm recently represented Graham Packaging Company Inc. (“Graham Packaging”), a portfolio company of The Blackstone Group, L.P., in connection with its initial public offering. The offering of 16,666,667 shares of common stock, which does not include the underwriters’ option to purchase 2,500,000 additional shares, raised approximately $166.7 million in gross proceeds. Graham Packaging used the majority of the net proceeds of the offering to repay indebtedness.
The shares of Graham Packaging are now listed on The New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “GRM.”
The underwriting syndicate was led by Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Deutsche Bank Securities Inc.
Graham Packaging, based in York, Pennsylvania, is a worldwide leader in the design, manufacture and sale of technology-based, customized blow molded plastic containers for the branded food and beverage, household, personal care/specialty and automotive lubricants product categories. Graham Packaging has an extensive blue-chip customer base that includes many of the world’s largest branded consumer products companies. It produces more than 20 billion container units annually at 84 plants in North America, Europe, and South America and had sales of $2.56 billion in 2008.
The Simpson Thacher team included Richard Fenyes, Andrea Andrezo and Jeff Laretto (Capital Markets and Securities), Wilson Neely, Jacob Kleinman and Markus Lotz (Mergers and Acquisitions), Alden Millard (Banking and Credit), Jennifer Nadborny (PCAP), Gary Mandel, Jonathon Talansky and Jason Vollbracht (Tax), and Greg Grogan and Beth Understahl (Executive Compensation and Employee Benefits). Paralegal Alexandra Greene also provided valuable assistance.