By Agnieszka Barteczko, Arno Schuetze and Abhinav Ramnarayan
WARSAW/FRANKFURT, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Private equity firm
Advent International is preparing an initial public offering
(IPO) of its parcel locker business InPost in early 2021 in
Amsterdam, several people close to the matter said, valuing its
equity at between 7-8 billion euros ($8.51-9.72 bln).
The U.S. buyout group launched a sales process in autumn for
InPost, hoping to cash in on a boom in consumers shopping online
and getting parcels delivered to InPost lockers, they said.
Amsterdam is emerging as a popular post-Brexit European
listing venue.
Private equity firms such as CVC, Hellman & Friedman and
Silver Lake recently made offers for the firm, but Advent has
for now told them that it is leaning towards an IPO as it
expects a stock market flotation to maximise value.
Advent and CVC declined to comment, while H&F and Silver
Lake were not immediately available for comment.
"Banks have told Advent to follow the IPO path. They expect
it to be huge," one of the people said.
Another source said that while a late January IPO in
Amsterdam was currently the preferred option, an outright sale
still remained a possibility.
Sources said that on top of lower minimum free float
requirements for international companies, Amsterdam is seen as
the international listing venue of choice after Brexit.
This is because Britain would no longer fall under the
European regulatory authority and this could complicate trading
for major European investors, one of the sources said.
Separately, Amsterdam has emerged as a hub for technology
listings, another source said.
InPost is expected to post earnings before interest, tax,
depreciation and amortization of up to 380 million euros next
year, the sources said.
InPost is a part of Integer.pl, an operator of parcel
lockers and courier services in Poland and internationally,
which Advent took over in 2017.
Integer was launched in 1999 by Rafal Brzoska, the chief
executive of the group. InPost was set up in 2006, while its
parcel lockers started in 2009.
InPost has now around 9,000 lockers in Poland, a country of
38 million, or 1,000 more than a month ago. It also operates in
Britain and Italy. InPost was listed in Warsaw in 2015-2017.
Citi, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan are global coordinators
with the help of Barclays, ABN Amro, Jefferies and BNP Paribas,
the people said.
The banks declined to comment.
($1 = 0.8229 euros)
(Reporting by Agnieszka Barteczko in Warsaw, Arno Schuetze in
Frankfurt and Abhinav Ramnarayan in London
Editing by Alexandra Hudson)