Solera files for IPO

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Feb 16, 2007 | by Barbara Grady

Solera Holdings LLC, a San Ramon-based supplier of software for auto insurance claims processing, filed papers this week with the U.S. Securitiesand Exchange Commission to go public and sell about $460 million worth of shares.

Solera and its investment banks have not yet priced the shares or cited a date for the initial public offering.

The stock will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "SLH."

Solera plans to use proceeds of the offering to reduce its debt.

Solera was founded in February 2005 from a former unit of Swiss Re Corp., a giant insurance holding company, by the unit's top executive Tony Aquila and private equity firm GTCR Golder Rauner LLC. Last spring, Solera acquired the claims services group of Automatic Data Processing Inc. for about $1 billion.

The company now has about $834 million in long-term debt.

In its registration statement filed late Monday, Solera said it estimates its revenues last year were $430 million, when combining revenues of both the original and acquired company. But because of interest payments on its debt and the need to write off intangible assets after its acquisition, it posted a loss in the third quarter of $17.9 million and an $18.9 million loss for the fiscal year that ended in June 2006.

Still, Solera is the largest supplier of software and services to the auto claims industry. Customers include 900 auto insurance companies, including the 10 largest auto insurers in North America, and 33,000 collision repair facilities. The company has more than 2,100 employees and $1.3 billion in assets.

The lead underwriters of the offering are Goldman, Sachs & Co. and JPMorgan.