Sensata Technologies, which develops, manufactures, and sells sensors and controls for mission critical applications in the automotive and industrial sectors, raised $569 million in gross proceeds by offering 31,600,000 shares at $18, the low end of its $18 to $20 range. Morgan Stanley, Barclays Capital, Goldman Sachs, BofA Merrill Lynch and J.P. Morgan acted as joint bookrunners on the deal. Sensata Technologies was formerly a division of Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) before being sold to private equity firm Bain Capital in 2006. The company booked $1.1 billion in sales for 2009, down 20% from the previous year as results were dragged down by the global economic downturn and resultant malaise within the auto sector where Sensata generates a large portion of its sales.
Sensata, which will be listed on the NYSE under the symbol "ST", marks the fifth private equity backed IPO in the US year-to-date, but only the second to price within its proposed range. Trading performance of the previous four PE-backed IPOs has been mixed, with only two trading higher in their market debut and the average total return through Wednesday sitting at 1.7% compared with 6.2% for non-PE backed IPOs year-to-date.
