
Safeway currently owns about 96% of Blackhawk and “will continue to hold shares of Class B common stock representing a significant majority of the combined voting power” of Blackhawk’s outstanding shares after the offering. The lead underwriters for the offering are Goldman Sachs, BofA/Merrill Lynch, Citigroup and Deutsche Bank Securities.
According to the filing, Blackhawk currently counts among its gift-card customers such high-profile companies as Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), Lowe’s Companies Inc. (NYSE: LOW), Macy’s Inc. (NYSE: M), Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) and Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) iTunes. The company also serves the three large payment networks: American Express Co. (NYSE: AXP), Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) and Mastercard Inc. (NYSE: MA). Blackhawk also issues reloadable cards for Green Dot Corp. (NYSE: GDOT) among others, including its own PayPower brand.
Blackhawk’s filing indicates that the company will receive none of the net proceeds from the offering. Class A shares will have one vote and Class B shares will have 10 votes on all matters that are put to a shareholder vote.
According to the filing, Blackhawk posted net income of $48.165 million in 2012 on operating revenues of $959.07 million, up from $362 million in revenues and $22.7 million in operating profits in 2001, the year the company was founded.