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The flow of companies listed on the exchange continues. It announced Tuesday morning that it could be one of the biggest IPOs this year.
Meltwater Holdings has developed its own technology to help customers analyze content from news articles and social media. They have done this successfully and the company now plans to be listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange market Merkur Market.
We’ve come a long way since starting the company with a $15,000 start-up capital and coffee machine in our warehouse in Oslo’s Tjuvholmen, Jørn Lyseggen said in a statement on Tuesday.
He was the founder and chairman of Meltwater Holding Bv and was at the heart of the company building.
When the company is currently listed on the stock exchange, it will raise approximately 2.3 billion NOK of capital from some selected investors. Some investors have guaranteed that Folketrygdfondet, Handelsbanken- and Tin-fond will already subscribe to 850 million NOK. Company’s price: 11.4 billion NOK.
Lyseggen’s founder and chairman owns 28% of Meltwater shares through investment firm Fountain Venture, and about 1.6% through Bipro as.
-I am the majority shareholder. Based on the size of the transaction, Lyseggen tells DN that it will own about 30% of its shares after issuance.
In this case, this is equivalent to 3.4 billion NOK.
One of the biggest list
Today’s shareholders, who own approximately four-fifths of their shares by former and incumbent employees and own 18% of the acquisition fund Altor, will also sell less of their shares in connection with the listing.
At the announced price, the Meltwater listing will be one of the largest listings on the Oslo Stock Exchange to date in 2020. Cancer vaccine company Vaccibody is listed at NOK 17.3 billion, and mobile company Link Mobility Group at NOK 14.4 billion. Meltwater is worth more than Aker Biomarine (worth NOK 9.2 billion), managed by Kjell Inge Røkke, and NOK 8.7 billion by video conferencing company Pexip.
Meltwater currently has about 28,000 customers, with sales of 3.2 billion NOK from the past 12 months to September, with a total operating profit of less than NOK 254 million. The company has 50 offices on 6 continents.
According to the annual accounting of Bipro as, which owns 5% of Meltwater Holding Bv, the company’s negative equity capital at the end of 2018 was $179 million, equivalent to Norwegian krone at the then-dollar exchange rate of about 1.4 billion krone.
This money will not only contribute to the company’s further growth, either organically or through acquisitions, it will also contribute to debt repayment, share options settlement and redemption of some employee-owned stocks.
Targeting the main stock market
The company’s message did not state when it was due to go public, except that the company’s pricing was “the largest in the Nordic region in 2020 and the largest in the Euronext Growth Oslo”. First trading day of Euronext Growth in early December 2020. Merkur Market will be renamed Euronext Growth at the end of November.
The company was also commissioned by the board of directors to apply for listing on the Oslo Stock Exchange’s main list within 12 months of listing on Euronext Growth, an unregulated market.
Meltwater has long since moved its headquarters to the U.S., but nevertheless agreed that Oslo is the best place to go public.
-As the next step in Meltwater development, the most important thing for us was listing. We investigated the alternative, and based on this, the Euronext Growth Oslo on the Norway and Oslo stock exchanges became a suitable place for listing on the stock exchange.
CEO John Boxer believes this fits well into the company’s culture.
-It’s good to pay attention in Norway as the Norwegian identity and traditions are strong since joining. We are very looking forward to it, he says.(hatchet)Copyright Dagens Næringsliv AS and/or our suppliers. We hope to share your case using a direct link to our page. Copying or other use of all or part of the content is possible only with written permission or as permitted by law. See additional terms here.
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