Springer Nature's shares leap on Frankfurt debut
By Lucy Raitano and Hakan Ersen
LONDON/FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Springer Nature's shares opened at 24 euros in its Frankfurt initial public offering (IPO) on Friday, 6.7% above where Germany's first listing in six months was priced.
Shares in the publisher of Nature and Scientific American were priced at 22.5 euros earlier this week, giving it a valuation of around 4.5 billion euros ($4.96 billion).
The shares rose as much as 9.6% from their IPO price to an intraday high of 24.66 euros, outperforming Germany's blue-chip DAX index which was trading flat and a basket of European media companies which was last 0.4% lower.
Springer Nature's IPO positive start will be a boost to other companies planning listings in Europe, after gains by new offerings this year from Swiss skincare firm Galderma and private equity firm CVC Capital Partners.
CEO Frank Vrancken Peeters said his company had named the IPO project Skywalker, after the character in the Star Wars movies. "When the Force is with you, how can you not succeed?" he said ahead of trading at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
The company and its bankers set a price range of 21 euros to 23.50 euros per share for the IPO last week, implying a market capitalisation of up to 4.7 billion euros.
IPO order books were covered some 30 minutes after opening.
The publisher raised 200 million euros from the sale of new shares. The total offer size was set to be around 600 million euros, assuming the full exercise of a greenshoe option.
Primary proceeds from the listing are intended in part to reduce Springer Nature's debt.
"It's a strong vote of confidence from our global investor base for what we've done in the past and our expectations going forward," Vrancken Peeters told Reuters.
"We will continue to make sure that we accelerate solutions to the world's biggest problems," Vrancken Peeters said.
The CEO said the company aimed to unlock the potential of open access and make "sure that we take advantage of artificial intelligence to reduce friction in the academic community to work with us and to share our findings across the world".
Majority shareholder Holtzbrinck Publishing is expected to hold 50.6% of the shares and existing shareholders BC Partners around 36%, after selling some of its holding, after the IPO.
Springer Nature said it intends to pay a dividend of 25 million euros ($27.5 million) for this year, and thereafter an annual dividend of around 50% of annual adjusted net income.
Its annual report shows its financial leverage ratio has been cut to 2.9 times, from 4.6 times in 2019.
The transaction was led by Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley.
Springer Nature, which postponed its previous IPO plans in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, reported group revenue of 1.85 billion euros and adjusted operating profit of 511 million euros in 2023.
($1 = 0.9071 euros)
(Reporting by Lucy Raitano and Hakan Ersen; Writing by Anousha Sakoui and Emma Victoria Farr; Editing by Amanda Cooper, David Evans and Alexander Smith)