Dollar General Secondary Offering, Buyback to Benefit Current Holders

The buyback falls under a previously announced $500 million buyback program. The owners of Buck Holdings include affiliates of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. L.P. (NYSE: KKR) and Goldman, Sachs & Co. (NYSE: GS). Dollar General will repurchase about 4.7 million shares at a price equal to the price to the public in the secondary offering.

Prior to the buyback Buck Holdings owns 33.7% of Dollar General’s stock; after the repurchase the firm will own 23.7% of Dollar General.

The secondary offering of 30 million shares includes the sale of another 29.6 million shares owned by Buck Holdings. The remaining shares are being sold by Dollar General executives and other individual shareholders.

Underwriters of the offering are Goldman Sachs, KKR and Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C). The underwriters have an option to purchase an additional 4.5 million shares. If the option is exercised, Buck Holdings ownership percentage will fall to 22.3%.

Shares of Dollar General are trading down nearly 4% in the premarket this morning at $50.80 in a 52-week range of $35.83 to $56.04.

The full SEC filing is available here.

Paul Ausick