Antin seeks €4.1B valuation in Paris IPO

Antin Infrastructure Partners is set to join a growing club of public European private equity firms, as it launches its IPO on Euronext Paris with a view to raising at least €550 million (about $649 million).

Antin, which is set to start trading on Sept. 24, has set its indicative price range between €20 and €24 per share and would raise around €350 million at the low end of its range by issuing up to 17.5 million new shares. The remainder will come from existing share sales. The listing could give the Paris-based firm a valuation of up to €4.13 billion.

The offering comes just two months after UK mid-market PE investor Bridgepoint Advisers  listed on the London Stock Exchange at a valuation of £2.9 billion (about $4 billion). Sweden's EQT and France's Tikehau Capital have also gone public in recent years, and LVMH -backed L Catterton is reportedly exploring an IPO, as more firms seek to tap into retail investor appetite for PE stocks.

Those firms who have already gone public have performed well. EQT, which had its blockbuster IPO in 2019, is now trading at around 397 Swedish kronor (about $46) per share, nearly six times its original listing price of 67 kronor per share. Bridgepoint, which went public in July, priced its IPO at 350 pence (about $4.84) per share and is now trading at around 514 pence, representing a nearly 47% premium.

Antin targets infrastructure investments in areas such as energy, telecom, transports and social infrastructure, such as health care education. The company had a €2.2 billion hard cap close in its maiden mid-cap fund in June.

Antin is looking to close two other funds over the next three years: its fifth and the NextGen Fund. The latter is looking to hit a €1.2 billion final close in early 2022, while Fund V—which is targeting between €10 billion and €11 billion—aims to have a final close in 2023.    
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