By Echo Wang and Lance Tupper

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Sales of shares in publicly listed U.S. companies had their strongest showing last week in more than a year, as companies and some of their shareholders, such as private equity firms, capitalized on the risk appetite of stock market investors.

Stock sales reached $4.97 billion in the United States last week, the highest tally since the second week in 2022, according to data provider Dealogic. Globally, stock sales reached $12.3 billion, the most in more than 30 weeks.

Investment bankers and lawyers say companies are seeing strong demand for their stock from investors who believe now is the time to place big bets on the market recovering in the wake of the Federal Reserve raising interest rates to fight inflation. It’s a risky proposition, so companies and their backers are seizing on the opportunity for fear it may soon slip away.

“Equity markets have regained some momentum and volatility has decreased, driving animal spirits on the buy side,” said Santiago Gilfond, co-head of Americas equity capital markets at Credit Suisse Group AG. He added that the sellers of stock have moderated their valuation expectations, helping to lure buyers.

Last week saw 18 so-called secondary stock sales in the U.S., including a $1.7 billion divestment by utility company American Water Works Co Inc, the fifth largest U.S. stock sale since beginning of 2022.

In another notable transaction last week, Oreo cookie maker Mondelez International Inc offloaded about a $1 billion stake in beverage firm Keurig Dr Pepper Inc in an unregistered stock sale, according to a securities filing.

Private equity firms are getting a piece of the action. Blackstone Inc last week sold a roughly $270 million stake in dating app Bumble Inc along with about $220 million position in human resources benefits platform Alight Inc, and this week, Providence Equity Partners sold a $333 million stake in software provider DoubleVerify Holdings Inc.

The surge in activity has been welcomed by bankers and lawyers working on these offerings. Collectively they executed $72.5 billion worth of stock sales for public companies in 2022, the lowest level since 1996 and a 67% drop from 2021’s deal bonanza, according to Dealogic data.

“Investors are willing to put money to work in a way that they weren’t a year ago,” said Michael Kaplan, a capital markets partner at law firm Davis Polk.

The next frontier for equity capital markets, bankers and lawyers say, are initial public offerings (IPOs), which have been subdued since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Unlike secondary stock sales, IPOs take at least a few days to market to investors, and several months to prepare, so companies can’t be as nimble in pursuing them when the market becomes welcoming.

A busy week for initial public offerings in early February offered some hope to stock market hopefuls, but advisors remain cautious as stocks sold off in recent weeks.

(Reporting by Echo Wang and Lance Tapper in New York; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

By Foo Yun Chee and Oliver Hirt

BRUSSELS/ZURICH (Reuters) -Swiss fragrance and flavour maker Givaudan said on Tuesday that it was being investigated by European Union and Swiss antitrust authorities after the EU announced earlier it had raided several companies on concerns of a cartel in the supply of fragrances and fragrance ingredients.

The UK competition agency also opened an investigation into the same sector.

“I can confirm that we are part of an industry-wide investigation by European and Swiss authorities. As a good corporate citizen, Givaudan is fully cooperating with the authorities,” a spokesperson said.

The European Commission did not name the companies, the association or the European Union countries where the dawn raids occurred in line with its usual policy. It said the fragrances are used in consumer products such as household and personal care products.

“The Commission has concerns that companies and an association in the fragrance industry worldwide may have violated EU antitrust rules that prohibit cartels and restrictive business practices,” the EU executive said in a statement.

When presented with evidence of wrongdoing, the bloc’s rules allow the EU antitrust enforcer to enter company offices, examine and take copies of records related to the business, as well as question staff.

The EU competition enforcer said it had been in contact with the U.S. Department of Justice and competition agencies in Britain and Switzerland and that the raids were conducted in consultation with them.

The UK Competition and Markets Authority said it had opened an investigation, setting a deadline of early 2024 for analysing and reviewing information gathered from the companies.

Companies face fines as much as 10% of their global turnover for violating EU antitrust rules.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Grant McCool and Aurora Ellis)

By Niket Nishant

(Reuters) -NYSE-owner Intercontinental Exchange Inc (ICE) and Black Knight Inc on Tuesday agreed to sell one of the mortgage data vendor’s units to quell antitrust concerns, but said they would take the battle to court to save the deal, if necessary.

Black Knight’s Empower loan origination system unit, which helps mortgage lenders manage costs and reduce processing time for loan applications, will be sold to a unit of Canada’s Constellation Software Inc, the two companies said.

Black Knight’s shares rose 3.6% , while those of the exchange operator dipped 0.2%.

The companies also amended their deal terms to reduce the valuation of Black Knight to $11.7 billion, nearly 11% lower than the valuation it had fetched when the agreement was announced last year.

The deal has come under scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission amid concerns from some U.S. lawmakers that the pricing power ICE would gain in the mortgage data market could lead to higher costs for consumers.

“ICE has committed to, among other things, litigate with the FTC, if necessary, to obtain approval of the merger,” it said.

U.S. antitrust regulators have taken a tough stance against corporate consolidation, waging battles against companies across industries including airlines, technology and finance.

“ICE’s commitment to litigate combined with the successful sale of Empower to a scale strategic buyer increases the likelihood of the merger closing, which more than offsets the lower merger consideration,” KBW analysts wrote in a note.

The divestiture will not be enough to assuage the FTC’s concerns but the quick sale to a large strategic buyer like Constellation Software should bolster the companies’ defense in a possible trial, the analysts said.

Last month, Reuters had reported the companies were planning to shed Empower.

(Reporting by Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Maju Samuel)

By Nandita Bose and Lisa Baertlein

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Engineering company Siemens AG announced on Tuesday it is investing over $220 million to build a rail car manufacturing facility in North Carolina.

The announcement comes as the Biden administration and fellow Democrats direct billions in federal funding to upgrade aging infrastructure and increase U.S. manufacturing, hoping to encourage private-sector spending and create jobs. A bill subsidizing chip manufacturing has attracted large investments from companies such as IBM and Micron.

Siemens’ new passenger-coach manufacturing facility, which will be built on a 200-acre site in Lexington, a 20,000 population town in central North Carolina, will bring 500 new jobs by 2028, the company said.

“We have a clear commitment from the administration to invest in infrastructure and in making a transformation of the mobility sector towards greener (power sources),” Siemens AG Chief Executive Roland Busch said in a telephone interview.

Busch said Siemens has a “strong foothold” in the market and sees longer term growth opportunities in high-speed rail. 

The company’s customers include Amtrak and dozens of transit agencies across the United States, which will be eligible for federal incentives for cleaner-powered locomotives.  

Siemens’ rail unit will be receiving a jobs development grant from the state of North Carolina, and the average salary for the new positions at the facility will be $51,568.

The grant agreement authorizes the potential reimbursement to the company of up to $5.63 million over 12 years, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper’s office said in a statement.

The German trains and software maker reported its strongest-ever quarter for its industrial business in February and raised its full-year profit forecasts.

Biden, who rode Amtrak for more than three decades while in Congress, has pushed investment in passenger rail and modernization of the busy “Northeast corridor,” which is one of the nation’s most congested rail corridors.

Mitch Landrieu, the White House official responsible for coordinating infrastructure fund disbursement, said the investment is “further proof that we’re driving unprecedented private sector investment,” with the implementation of the infrastructure law.

It is also critical for the Biden administration’s climate goals, he said. “On the climate side we are getting ready for a clean energy economy. This is going to be a net zero facility.”

The $1 trillion infrastructure law provides $66 billion for rail, an unprecedented boost in federal aid for trains. This includes $24 billion in grants for projects in the Northeast corridor.

Amtrak said in November it wants to expand dramatically across the United States and add up to 39 corridor routes and up to 166 cities by 2035.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Heather Timmons and Nick Zieminski)

LONDON (Reuters) -An investor consortium including Blackstone and Thomson Reuters, the parent company of Reuters News, is selling 1.7 billion pounds ($2.01 billion) worth of shares in the London Stock Exchange Group to trim its joint stake.

Investment banks managing the sale of 23 million LSEG shares had orders for all the stock in the offering, according to bookrunner messages seen by Reuters after close of markets on Tuesday.

The transaction follows the publication of LSEG’s 2022 earnings last week, which showed an increase in total income to 7.74 billion pounds from 6.54 billion pounds the year prior, beating analysts expectations.

Separately, the bourse operator plans to buy back up to 750 million pounds of stock from the Blackstone-Thomson Reuters consortium by April 2024.

U.S. technology giant Microsoft previously agreed to purchase a 4% stake from the consortium as part of a wider strategic partnership with LSEG in December.

Blackstone and Thomson Reuters have been shareholders in LSEG since they sold financial data provider Refinitiv to the UK group in 2021, in a landmark deal valued at $27 billion.

Following the latest stake sale, the consortium will not be able to offload any further shares for a 90-day period, according to a bank term sheet.

Barclays, Citi, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are joint global coordinators on the transaction, with Blackstone’s own capital markets unit acting as co-lead manager.

($1 = 0.8437 pounds)

(Reporting by Pablo Mayo Cerqueiro; Editing by Elisa Martinuzzi and Howard Goller)