CVC pulls back from IPO as turbulence hits
Buyout giant CVC Capital has pushed back a planned move onto the public markets this year as market turmoil continues to take its toll on IPO activity, according to reports.
The London-based firm has told analysts that it now plans to push its IPO into this autumn or early in 2023 due to the market turbulence sparked by soaring inflation and war in Ukraine, the Financial Times first reported.
CVC, Europe’s biggest private equity group, has reportedly snubbed London for a listing and is angling towards Amsterdam’s Euronext exchange, in a blow to the City’s efforts to promote itself as a premier listings capital.
The firm was valued at 15bn euros when it sold a minority stake to Blue Owl’s Dyal Capital unit last year, but reportedly plans to structure its IPO to retain the bumper profits it makes from dealmaking while offering investors a share of its smaller management fees, according to January reports.
The delay comes amid a major slowdown in IPO activity this year as firms push back floatation plans and investors pull back from equity markets en masse.
IPO numbers globally plunged 37 per cent in the first quarter of 2022 while cash raised tumbled 51 per cent compared to the first quarter of 2021, when fundraising soared amid a pent up pandemic boom, according to data from ‘Big Four’ firm EY.
EY’s UK IPO lead Scott McCubbin told Morning Wire that firms were delaying plans to float rather than scrapping altogether, however.
“Pushing back, I think that’s the right word,” he said. “What we have seen, and we’re still seeing, is that for people thinking of an IPO, that hasn’t gotten off the agenda,” he tolc Morning Wire
“I think that IPO activity will recover as the market becomes more certain.”
McCubbin said that IPO numbers in 2021 had also been bolstered by firms pushing IPOs forward with the view of inflationary headwinds coming down the track in 2022.
CVC declined to comment.