STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -Shares of security services group Verisure soared on Wednesday, their first day of trading on the Stockholm bourse, following the biggest initial public offering of a European company so far this year, LSEG data showed.
Verisure’s shares initially leapt by 24.7% to a high of 16.53 euros per share in morning trade from a price of 13.25 euros set in the IPO, which had valued the group at 13.7 billion euros ($15.9 billion). The stock traded at 15.64 euros by 1142 GMT.
The Switzerland-based alarm systems provider’s float is the latest in a broader revival in Europe’s IPO market after a sluggish first half of the year when several planned listings were pulled due to trade tensions and concerns over conflict in the Middle East.
STRONG INTEREST FROM INSTITUTIONAL INVESTORS, SWEDISH PUBLIC
Verisure, which had previously set a share price range of between 12.25 and 13.50 euros, said in a statement the offering was multiple times oversubscribed.
“The offering attracted strong interest from Swedish and international institutional investors as well as the general public in Sweden,” it said.
Verisure, initially a unit of Sweden’s Securitas, was first listed in 2006 as Securitas Direct. Its current majority owner is U.S. private equity firm Hellman & Friedman.
The company unveiled in September that it planned to list on Nasdaq Sweden and raise 3.1 billion euros.
It said on Wednesday that, if an overallotment option is exercised in full, proceeds of the IPO will total around 3.6 billion euros.
In September, Swedish digital banking group Noba soared in its Stockholm bourse debut following an IPO that had valued the company at 44.5 billion crowns ($4.72 billion).
The same month, Sweden-based buy-now, pay-later fintech Klarna also jumped in its stock market debut, in New York. Klarna was among the big names to have shelved IPO plans earlier this.
($1 = 0.8610 euros)
($1 = 9.4205 Swedish crowns)
(Reporting by Anna Ringstrom; Editing by Terje Solsvik, Muralikumar Anantharaman and Joe Bavier)
