DONG Energy listing set to value group at up to $16 billion

By Teis Jensen COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - DONG Energy on Thursday set an indicative price range for its planned stock market listing, which could value the Danish utility at up to $16 billion (10.9 billion pounds), potentially making it Europe's biggest flotation this year. The state-controlled company, which also develops offshore wind farms, set its price range at 200 Danish crowns to 255 crowns per share, giving the group a market value of 83.5 billion to 106.5 billion Danish crowns ($12.6-16.0 billion). DONG said it would sell up to 17.4 percent of its shares in the initial public offering and that the Danish state would keep a 50.1 percent stake. The company was created 10 years ago from the merger of a Danish state oil and gas entity and five regional utilities. It has grown rapidly to become the world's largest offshore wind farm developer. It has built more than a quarter of the world's offshore wind farms, is a major player in Britain and Germany and has recently opened offices in the United States and Taiwan, "If the share price ends in the middle of the price range we are definitely interested," Equity Strategist Otto Friedrichsen at Danish asset manager Formuepleje said. "It the price ends in the high end, and I think it could, we would have to take a closer look at the prospectus before we decide if we will invest," Friedrichsen said. The government sold 18 percent of DONG to a group of investors led by Goldman Sachs in January 2014. If DONG is valued at 100 billion crowns at the IPO that stake would have increased in value to 18 billion crowns from 8 billion in 2014. DONG said the final offer price would be determined through a bookbuilding process from Thursday through to June 8. Shares will start trading on Copenhagen's stock exchange from June 9. JP Morgan , Morgan Stanley and Nordea are global co-ordinators for the listing while Citigroup , Danske Bank , UBS , RBC , Rabobank [RABO.UL] and ABG Sundal Collier are also involved. (Editing by Jason Neely and Jane Merriman)