Nets says it plans for an initial public offering, with Scandinavia’s biggest payments processor is aiming to raise DKr5.5bn ($824m) through the issue of new shares and a partial sell down by its private equity owners.
The planned flotation on the Danish stock market comes only two years after it was bought by
Nets Holding announces plans for IPO
Bain Capital and Advent International, in a consortium with Danish pension fund ATP Group.
Bo Nilsson, Nets chief executive, said in an interview with the FT, the IPO was “the next step in the development of the Nets group following a period of rapid growth and considerable investment, during which the business has been transformed”.
James Brocklebank, Managing Partner at Advent International and a Nets board member, said: “When we made our initial investment, we envisioned a future listing when Nets was ready. The company has exceeded its ambitious performance targets and done so faster than expected, so we are now executing on our plan.”
The move also marks an attempt to reopen the European IPO market for larger companies, which suffered a stuttering start to the year and has been effectively closed since the British vote to exit the EU in June.
The $18.5bn raised from European IPOs so far this year is down 55% from the same period of 2015, according to Thomson Reuters.
Nets has sharply improved its performance since the consortium bought it for DKr17bn from a group of 189 Nordic banks in 2014.
The payments processing group has produced strong growth on the back of rising use of the internet and mobile devices to transfer money, an area in which the Nordic region is particularly advanced.
Nets handled 7.3bn transactions last year, up from more than 6bn two years earlier. Its revenues rose 6% in 2015, while its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortisation and special items were up by a third.
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