Turnaround investor Horizon Acquisition Company has raised £417.7 million at £10 a share in a London initial public offering (IPO).

The company, set up by Michael Fairey, the former deputy chief executive of Lloyds TSB, and entrepreneur Hugh Osmond, plans to invest in and restructure highly leveraged UK companies in the consumer sector.

Horizon intends to use the proceeds to acquire a British business with an enterprise value of between £1 billion and £3 billion.

Osmond says: 'Today there are fundamentally good companies which have fundamentally poor capital structures, because of the weight of their debt. For them, refinancings are [an] expensive elastoplast. The need is to restructure their balance sheets and support management and investment for growth.'