The British government, along with banking officials and the London Stock Exchange (LSE) have “turned on the charm offensive” to persuade food delivery platform Deliveroo for an initial public offering (IPO) by early 2021, sources told Reuters.
Deliveroo has appointed Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan to manage the IPO. It is looking to list 35-40 percent of the business by H1FY21 in either New York or London, the sources added.
Moneycontrol could not independently verify the report.
The scramble to attract the Deliveroo listing comes as the company could be valued at over 3 billion pounds or $3.99 billion after listing, as the COVID-19 pandemic has boosted food delivery business while eating into the dine-out industry.
Over the past three years, Deliveroo has raised $1.5 billion from Amazon, Fidelity, Greenoaks and T.Rowe Price.
Deliveroo, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and LSE did not respond to queries, as per the report.
By precedence, European tech companies have chosen to list in “entrepreneur and tech investor-friendly” New York – e.g. Spotify.
“We are all doing what we can to convince Deliveroo to stay in London, and increasingly tech firms are seeing the benefit of listing on their home venue and getting the investor attention they deserve. It helps that the kind of valuation commanded by the likes of The Hut Group is comparable to the United States,” one source said.
If LSE manages to nab the Deliveroo listing, probable IPOs by British companies Darktrace, Moonpig, Music Magpie and Trustpilot could also follow – a major coup after The Hut Group’s multi-billion pound listing in September, the report noted.
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