France's Exosens aims for 1 billion euro valuation in Paris IPO

(Reuters) - French optical component maker Exosens on Monday set a price of 20 euros per share for its planned initial public offering (IPO) in Paris, valuing the company at around 1 billion euros ($1.08 billion), with shares set to start trading on June 7.

Exosens provides night vision tools and photo sensor tech for defense, medical and nuclear scientific application. It is deemed strategic by France's government, which blocked its sale to a U.S. conglomerate four years ago.

Exosens is looking to generate 300 million euros in total proceeds through the sale of new and existing shares, representing about 29% of its capital.

The amount raised through the sale of new shares is expected to be about 180 million euros, the company said in May.

The IPO will be structured partly as a private placement with institutional investors both in France and abroad, and partly as a reserved capital increase for state-owned investment bank Bpifrance, Exosens said in a statement.

The company, which is benefiting from a boom in global military spending, will still be controlled by private equity firm Groupe HLD after the IPO, it said in a statement.

($1 = 0.9219 euros)

(Reporting by Olivier Sorgho and Mathieu Rosemain; Editing by Benoit Van Overstraeten, Kirsten Donovan)