JDE Peet’s BV surged in Amsterdam trading after the coffee giant raised 2.3 billion euros (US$2.56 billion) in just 10 days to become Europe’s biggest initial public offering (IPO) this year.
The stock climbed 13 percent to 35.43 euros by 10:10am in Amsterdam.
The company, carved out of the Reimann family’s investment firm, JAB Holding Co, priced its shares at 31.50 euros each, according to a statement yesterday, in the upper half of the range of 30 euros to 32.35 euros at which the offering was marketed.
That gave the company a market value of 15.6 billion euros.
JDE Peet’s on Thursday said that it would close the book early after just three days of taking orders in the IPO.
Investor demand exceeded the number of shares being sold by multiple times at the offer price, with strong interest from institutions globally, the company said.
By condensing the usual four-week listing process to just 10 days, JDE Peet’s minimized its exposure to potential market swings tied to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The pandemic has upended the traditional IPO process, with shorter subscription periods, more cornerstone investors and virtual meetings to pitch the offerings to investors. Cornerstone investors, including funds run by billionaire George Soros’s firm, are taking up one-third of JDE Peet’s offering.
JDE Peet’s is attractive in part because it should grow at a faster rate than the global economy and also pays a dividend, said Colin McLean, chief investment officer at SVM Asset Management, whose fund participated in the IPO and also bought shares once trading began.
“It’s a stable business making a steady move to premium, higher value-added coffee markets,” he said, describing the trading debut as a “reasonable start.”
The initial stock pop was to be expected given the high demand, he said, adding that his fund had received a lower-than-requested allocation.
The share sale saw strong demand from investors in the US, the UK and continental Europe, a person familiar with the transaction said.
Given the robust interest, keeping the order book open longer would have only exposed the transaction to downside risk, the person added.
The IPO brings to market a company that had sales of 6.9 billion euros last year and owns well-known supermarket brands including Douwe Egberts, Jacobs and Kenco, as well as US retailers Peet’s and Intelligentsia.
JAB created the company through a series of acquisitions, capped by the combination in December of Jacobs Douwe Egberts and Peet’s.
Coffee consumption has remained resilient during the pandemic, moving from offices and cafes into people’s homes, according to JDE Peet’s, which bills itself as the world’s largest pure-play coffee group.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
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The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
PRESSURE EXPECTED: The appreciation of the NT dollar reflected expectations that Washington would press Taiwan to boost its currency against the US dollar, dealers said Taiwan’s export-oriented semiconductor and auto part manufacturers are expecting their margins to be affected by large foreign exchange losses as the New Taiwan dollar continued to appreciate sharply against the US dollar yesterday. Among major semiconductor manufacturers, ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光), the world’s largest integrated circuit (IC) packaging and testing services provider, said that whenever the NT dollar rises NT$1 against the greenback, its gross margin is cut by about 1.5 percent. The NT dollar traded as strong as NT$29.59 per US dollar before trimming gains to close NT$0.919, or 2.96 percent, higher at NT$30.145 yesterday in Taipei trading
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