German IPO gives buyout shops scant cause to cheer

Springer Nature AG & Co KgaA

04/10/2024 09:38

(The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist.  The opinions
expressed are her own.)
    By Yawen Chen
       LONDON, Oct 4 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Academic
publisher Springer Nature rose 7% on its Frankfurt debut. But it
had been offered at a tangible discount to help owner BC
Partners offload a long-held stake. Private equity sellers in a
similar position won’t get much encouragement to take the plunge
too.
    Full view will be published shortly.
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    CONTEXT NEWS
    Shares in Springer Nature opened at 24 euros in its initial
public offering in Frankfurt on Oct. 4, 6.7% above where the
stock priced.
    The German academic publisher had set the final offer price
for the shares in the upper half of the price range at 22.5
euros, which corresponds to a stock market value of around 4.5
billion euros.
    The company last tried to go public in the first half of
2020 before shelving the plan in October that year citing
uncertainty around Covid-19.

 (Editing by Aimee Donnellan and Oliver Taslic)
 ((For previous columns by the author, Reuters customers can
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yawen.chen@thomsonreuters.com))