CVC Capital Partners, one of Europe’s largest private equity groups, has announced plans to raise more than €1.25bn (£1.1bn) in an initial public offering in Amsterdam.
The company, which manages €186bn of assets, including a stake in the Six Nations, has confirmed it will go ahead with the highly anticipated IPO on Amsterdam’s Euronext.
The company aims to raise €250m by selling new shares, while existing investors also plan to sell stock, the company said on Monday. Employees at the company are not selling in the IPO, the company said.
The firm is seeking a valuation of between €13bn and €15bn, Bloomberg has reported.
CVC, one of the best-known buyout group in Europe, has recently taken stakes in big brands such as Lipton Teas and the Swiss watchmaker Breitling, but also in media rights for La Liga, Spain’s top football league.
It came close to a stock market listing in May 2022 and November 2023 but decided to postpone due to market uncertainty.
CVC will become the latest large private equity fund to list, with its rivals Blackstone, EQT, Bridgepoint and KKR going public in recent years.
Since November 2023, when the company last pulled back from going public, the share prices of its rivals such as Blackstone, EQT and KKR have risen sharply.
The main shareholders that will sell shares under the IPO include the Kuwait Investment Authority, the Singaporean Sovereign wealth fundGIC and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority.
Blue Owl Capital, which owns an 8% stake in the company, has committed to increasing its stake by buying at least 10% of the shares that become after the float.
Rob Lucas, the CVC chief executive, said: “We have spent more than 40 years building the CVC network and developing a unique entrepreneurial culture centred on delivering consistent investment outperformance for our clients.
“We believe an IPO of CVC provides an enduring long term institutional structure to support further growth, we remain completely focused on the continued success of CVC, and neither I nor any of my active partners are selling shares as part of this transaction.”
