German specialty chemicals group Evonik is proceeding with plans to go public but is not ruling out using an "emergency brake" if the severe volatility in the global financial markets worsens, a spokesman at RAG Foundation, Evonik's majority shareholder, said Monday.
He said Evonik's supervisory board declared the "intention to float" at a meeting on Friday.
"From this day onwards normally, you have the first trading day around four weeks later -- which could be end of June. But no one of the participants, including the Foundation, CVC or Evonik, did disclose a defined date as the first trading day," the spokesman said in an email to Platts.
However, the company did not rule out using an "emergency brake in case of market turbulence" in the coming weeks, he added.
RAG owns 74.99% of Evonik, while private equity firm CVC holds the rest.
Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs are the joint global coordinators and bookrunners of the IPO.
RAG said in March that it had resumed preparations for the share listing with the aim of launching it in the first half of 2012.
The spokesman did not elaborate on the details, though he reiterated that CVC planned to sell a share for every two shares that RAG offers in the IPO.
Newspaper reports in Germany and the UK claimed that trading of the Evonik shares, which analysts expected to raise at least Eur3 billion ($3.8 billion) in proceeds, could start on June 25.
Evonik's plan to go public had been shelved since last year due to the volatile market conditions.
