Stentys Sells Shares at EU12, Raises $32.6 Million

Stentys, a French company that makes stents to treat heart disease, priced its initial public offering at 12 euros a share, raising 22.7 million euros ($32.6 million).

Stentys sold 1.89 million shares, and won’t exercise the extension clause allowing it to sell more stock, the company said today in an e-mailed statement. The price was the middle of the range of 10.80 euros to 13.20 euros sought by Paris-based Stentys.

The sale values Stentys at about 87 million euros, the company said. The shares will trade on NYSE Euronext.

Societe Generale SA and Piper Jaffray Cos. arranged the sale, along with Gilbert Dupont. Allegra Finance also advised Stentys.

Stents are small metal tubes that are inserted to prop open clogged heart arteries. While conventional stents maintain their shape once inserted into a patient, Stentys’s product adapts to changes in the artery’s diameter, preventing complications, according to a statement on the company’s website.

The product, made of a titanium alloy, has marketing approval in the European Union. It’s undergoing testing in people and isn’t sold in the U.S., according to the Stentys website.

Stentys Chairman Jacques Seguin, a cardiac surgeon, founded CoreValve Inc., which was sold to Medtronic Inc. for $700 million last year, according to the Stentys website. He founded Stentys with Chief Executive Officer Gonzague Issenmann, a former Johnson & Johnson executive.

Stentys’s shareholders include Seguin, Issenmann, Paris- based Sofinnova Partners, Credit Agricole Private Equity and SEP, a Scottish venture capital firm.

To contact the reporter on this story: Phil Serafino in Paris at pserafino@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Phil Serafino at pserafino@bloomberg.net