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By Pamela Barbaglia and Abhinav Ramnarayan
LONDON, Feb 18 (Reuters) - The private equity owner of
French car parts group Autodis has hired banks to resume plans
for a share sale in Paris in a bid to take advantage of strong
investor demand in the busiest-ever start to a year for stock
listings, sources told Reuters.
U.S. buyout firm Bain Capital, which took control of Autodis
in 2015, has hired Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas
and Barclays as global coordinators to pursue an
initial public offering (IPO) this year, two sources familiar
with the matter said.
The planned share sale comes amid buoyant market conditions
with a record $63 billion of global IPO fundraising in January
and follows an aborted listing attempt in 2018 due to
lower-than-expected investors demand.
Autodis could be valued at more than 1.5 billion euros
($1.81 billion) in its latest attempt to go public, one of the
sources said.
Autodis, Bain Capital and the banks were not immediately
available to comment.
Based in Arcueil, on the outskirts of Paris, Autodis
specialises in aftermarket spare parts distribution for both
light vehicles and trucks in Western Europe, with a focus on
France, the Benelux, Italy and Spain.
The firm expects to generate core earnings of about 200
million euros in the financial year ending in March and is
looking at U.S. recycled auto parts supplier LKQ Corp -
which bought Italian auto parts distributor Rhiag from Apax in
2015 - as a possible comparable for its listing.
LKQ trades on an EV/EBITDA multiple for the trailing 12
months of 10.5 times, according to Refinitiv's Eikon terminals.
Autodis grew its EBITDA by 20% to around 154 million euros
in 2019. Last year, it tapped into a government-backed loan
scheme in France to replenish its coffers and grapple with the
COVID-19 crisis, borrowing about 25 million euros.
($1 = 0.8279 euros)
(Reporting by Pamela Barbaglia and Abhinav Ramnarayan; editing
by Jonathan Oatis)
