CVC and RBS sell $216 million of Samsonite shares

Two trading days after Samsonite International’s share price once again closed above the IPO price, private equity firm CVC Capital Partners and Royal Bank of Scotland teamed up to sell a portion of their remaining stakes in the luggage specialist at a 4.7% discount.

Investors had been expecting a trade from either or both of the two sellers since mid-December when the IPO lock-up expired, but yesterday’s transaction still seemed to take the market somewhat by surprise. Indeed, when a deal didn’t materialise immediately after Samsonite released stronger-than-expected 2011 earnings on March 28, investors who had been selling the stock short in anticipation of a sell-down seemed to become nervous...