Aspen, the Bermuda headquartered global specialty insurance and reinsurance company, is reportedly opting for New York as a venue for an initial public offering (IPO), rather than London, according to the Financial Times.
It’s been reported before that Aspen has been working with bankers for a number of months, in planning an initial public offering (IPO) of its shares and a stock exchange listing.
It’s been rumoured for a while that the re/insurer would aim to go public at around the US $3.5 billion to US $4 billion mark, in terms of valuation.
Of course, Aspen had previously gone public, on the NYSE, back in 2003, at the time of which it had a market capitalisation of around $1.6 billion.
But Aspen was taken private in a transaction that saw private equity giant Apollo buying in as its main shareholder in 2019, at a valuation of $2.6 billion at the time.
Now, the company aims to go public again in 2024 and the FT reported that management at Aspen are targeting a New York listing as there are concerns over valuations, more stringent listing requirements and also the availability of liquidity for an IPO on the London Stock Exchange.
The FT says this would be a fresh blow to the UK market. But, Aspen was previously an NYSE and Bermuda listing when it was public before, since when its headquarters and domicile have been in Bermuda. So it’s not immediately clear why anyone would assume London would be its IPO venue. Over half of Aspen’s staff are in London though.
The FT says people familiar with the IPO planning said that Aspen has undertaken an exercise to compare listing in London or New York.
But technical issues, as well as a shrinking valuation gap between listings on the NYSE versus London’s LSE, are said to be swaying Aspen’s management to favour the US at this time.
However, people familiar with Apollo told the FT that a New York listing was always the more likely.
