BUZZ - Schneider Electric shares drop due to €6 billion stock placement

October 20 - ** Schneider Electric (SCHN.PA) shares fell by 4% after the French electrical equipment maker (link) raised 6 billion euros ($6.74 billion) through an accelerated bookbuilding (ABB, a method of rapidly selling shares to institutional investors) in a share placement.

** Schneider overnight placed 25 million new shares, giving no pre-emptive rights to existing shareholders

** The placement was priced at 240 euros per share, a 4.99% discount to the previous session’s closing price of 252.6 euros

** The net proceeds will be partly used to finance its proposed acquisition of U.S. software company PTC Inc PTC.O

** Berenberg said PTC will enhance Schneider's software product line, including product and engineering capabilities, but noted it is still unclear where the targeted 800 million euro revenue synergies will come from

** Berenberg said investor feedback is mainly focused on the synergies, ongoing concerns about artificial intelligence possibly disrupting software business, and the execution risk involved in simultaneously pursuing multiple transactions, including PTC, Shelly Group (SLYG.BB), and Cognite

(1 US dollar = 0.8907 euro)

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