Cybersecurity firm Avast is reportedly set to price its initial public offering at £2.50 per share.
The private equity-backed company is expected to list at the bottom of a £2.50-£2.70 price range set earlier according to Reuters, which cited a bookrunner source.
It aims to sell around 25% of its stock and raise up to $200m in proceeds in which could be one of Britain’s biggest ever technology IPOs. Based on the latest price guidance, Avast would achieve a market capitalisation of £2.5bn upon listing.
Avast is 46%-owned by its founders, Czech entrepreneurs Pavel Baudis and Eduard Kucera. CVC Capital Partners holds a 29% stake, with Summit Partners holding 7%.
The security software services provider had already planned a U.S. IPO in 2012 before backtracking citing market conditions.
In 2017, Avast’s adjusted revenue was $780m and adjusted cash earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) was $451m.
Avast has created a scalable cloud-based security infrastructure that claims to ‘see everything’ that happens on the internet, giving it the advantage of being first to inspect and analyse potential threats.
Its 400 million worldwide sensors enables it to discover and analyse the latest threats before they can damage a business. Its cloud-based Smart Scan also helps businesses discover any threats hidden on a network unobtrusively. Topped off with daily invisible micro-updates, Avast antivirus aims to ensure nothing compromises your endpoints.
In 2015, Cybersecurity business Sophos began trading publicly in the largest ever initial public offering for a UK software company on the London Stock Exchange. The company raised $125m on a valuation of £1.013bn ($1.6bn).
According to recent report from RegTech Analyst, the ten most active investors in the cybersecurity sector between 2014 and Q1 2018 are all headquartered in the US. The list is comprised of seven venture capital firms, as well as the investment arms of three corporates: Google, Dell and Intel.
New Enterprise Associates (NEA), a Menlo Park-based VC firm, was the most active investor over this period with 30 investments. The largest deal that NEA participated in was a $110m investment in Cloudflare, a web performance and security company, in Q3 2015.
Copyright © 2018 RegTech Analyst
Copyright © 2018 RegTech Analyst
