Copenhagen-based review site, Trustpilot Group plc surged in its stock market debut on Tuesday after its IPO raised £473M (approx €549M). The IPO of the 44 per cent stake gives the company a market capitalisation of £1.08B (approx €1.25B), according to a statement released by the company.Â
Transaction in details
The company, on Tuesday, said that it had priced its initial public offering at 265 pence per share. But, the stock traded at 295 pence as of 8:13 a.m. in London – up 11 per cent.
The total offer size is around £473M (approx €548M) and represents 43.6 per cent of Trustpilot’s issued share capital on admission. Reportedly, the amount comprises Trustpilot’s existing shareholders, who have raised about £427M (approx €494.7M) through the sale of 161 million existing shares at 265 pence per share, and the review site raised about £47M (approx €54.45M) through the sale of 17.6 million shares.
In addition, the offering could provide about £544M (approx €630.2M) if the existing investors get the option to sell additional shares.
A further approx 26.8 million shares in the company are being made available by few existing shareholders pursuant to the over-allotment option. Trustpilot’s investors, including BlackRock Inc., FIL Investments International, Caledonia Investments Plc, Capital Research Global Investors, Adelphi Capital, and Janus Henderson Group Plc, had agreed to buy a large amount of the offering before Trustpilot began the sale.
Before going public, Trustpilot had mentioned that it would have a free float of at least 25 per cent of issued share capital and may raise approx $50M (approx €41.5M) capital for growth and to repay debt.
JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley are managing the offering, along with Berenberg and Danske Bank.
About TrustpilotÂ
Trustpilot was founded in 2007 by Peter Holten Mühlmann (CEO), with a vision to create an independent currency of trust. The company provides an open platform, where businesses and consumers can gain actionable insights and collaborate. Consumers are able to share feedback about any business with a website and review feedback left by other consumers.
The company offers paid subscription models for businesses, providing increasing levels of functionality and offered on a SaaS basis.
As of 31st December 2020, over 529,000 domains (both claimed and unclaimed, and including domains subsequently removed from the Trustpilot consumer website) had been reviewed.
In addition, the platform had hosted over 120 million reviews by consumers (including reviews subsequently removed or deleted) and had over 19,500 premium customers for its SaaS products and services.
