Advent Global Opportunities to sell 21.6m Trustpilot shares in placing

(Sharecast News) - Deutsche Bank said on Monday that Advent Global Opportunities plans to sell up to 21.6m shares in Trustpilot in a placing. The placing shares, which represent about 5.6% of Trustpilot's existing issued ordinary share capital, are being offered by way of an accelerated bookbuild.

Deutsche Numis and JP Morgan are acting as joint bookrunners in connection with the placing and Trustpilot will not receive any of the proceeds.

Once the placing has completed, Advent Global will continue to hold a small residual stake of about 250,000 shares through a separate fund.

Earlier on Monday, Trustpilot said it will appeal a decision by Italy's competition regulator to impose a €4m fine on it and its subsidiaries for breaching commercial practices.

The AGCM said in a statement that an investigation revealed the companies failed to carry out adequate checks to ensure the authenticity of reviews published on their platform, including where such reviews were labelled by Trustpilot as verified.

"The authority found that the review collection services offered by the platform - promoted as tools to reduce the risk of false or misleading content and to ensure greater system integrity - actually allow businesses to select the consumers to whom review invitations are sent, with implications for the overall representativeness of the published ratings," it said.

The regulator also said Trustpilot had failed to ensure consumers had adequate access to key information about the functioning of the platform, the use of paid-for services by businesses featured on the platform and other aspects relevant to consumer decision-making.

"Taken together, these conducts - also implemented using interface design techniques typical of dark patterns - amount to a misleading practice," it said.

Trustpilot said it "strongly" disagree with the findings of the investigation and will "robustly appeal".

The shares closed up 3.9% at 245.28p.