United Internet AG and Warburg Pincus said the initial public offering of Ionos Group will raise gross proceeds of as much as €543 million ($590 million) when the web hosting business lists in Frankfurt.
(Bloomberg) — United Internet AG and Warburg Pincus said the initial public offering of Ionos Group will raise gross proceeds of as much as €543 million ($590 million) when the web hosting business lists in Frankfurt.
The price range for the Ionos shares has been set at €18.50 to €22.50 apiece, the companies said in a statement on Friday. United Internet and Warburg are each offering 15% of their holdings in Ionos, they said, confirming an earlier Bloomberg News report. The free float following the IPO will be as much as 17.3% if an over-allotment option is exercised.
At the high end of the price range, the listing would give Ionos a market value of as much as €3.15 billion, below an original potential target of up to €5 billion.
The owners and advisers decided to price in the usual IPO discount, as well as a rebate for it being the first big listing in Europe this year, according to people familiar with the deliberations. Doing so leaves more potential upside for a jump in the shares, they said, asking not to be identified discussing confidential information.
“The positive feedback we received from numerous investors reinforces our belief that the IPO will strengthen our successful growth trajectory,” Achim Weiss, Ionos’s chief executive officer said in the statement. “We look forward to discussing our bright future with investors in the coming weeks.”
The German technology company’s ice-breaker listing is seen as a litmus test for shareholder appetite in Europe’s moribund IPO market as well as the broader technology sector. Tech companies globally have been hit by declining share prices and are taking part in a wave of job cuts and restructuring announcements.
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Ionos, whose publicly traded peers include GoDaddy Inc. and Squarespace Inc., focuses on small and medium-sized enterprises in Europe and North America. It also runs a fast-growing cloud business that competes with firms including France’s OVH Groupe SAS and New York-listed DigitalOcean Holdings Inc.
“More and more companies are moving online as part of their digitalization journey,” Ralph Dommermuth, CEO of United Internet, said in Friday’s statement. “Investors’ interest in the offered shares is a clear indication of their belief in the attractiveness of Ionos’ business model and confirms that an IPO is the next logical step.”
United Internet expects to receive gross proceeds of €336 million to €408 million, depending on the final offer price.
The Ionos IPO is being led by joint global coordinators JPMorgan Chase & Co., Deutsche Bank AG, Berenberg and BNP Paribas SA. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Barclays Plc are joint bookrunners.
–With assistance from Eyk Henning.
(Updates with value, details from statement from third paragraph.)
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