By Arasu Kannagi Basil and Echo Wang
(Reuters) -Ingram Micro notched a valuation of $6 billion after shares jumped 15% in their market debut on Thursday, signaling strong investor demand for one of the world’s largest technology distributors.
U.S. initial public offerings have staged a comeback as investor sentiment improves and stock markets hover near record highs. With uncertainties surrounding the presidential election and future rate cuts expected to ease next year, analysts anticipate more companies will move forward with their listings.
Ingram and its private-equity owner Platinum Equity together sold 18.6 million shares in the IPO to raise $409.2 million.
The IPO valued the company at $5.18 billion after the deal was priced at $22 per share, within the targeted range of $20 and $23. The stock opened for trading at $25.28 apiece.
The offering comes at a time when the global consumer electronics market is expected to undergo a strong upgrade cycle, as consumers flock to new artificial intelligence features being added to everything from smartphones to washing machines.
“One of those things we’ve done, and we continue to do under Platinum … is investing ahead of the curve. We spent more than $600 million in our cloud business,” Ingram CEO Paul Bay told Reuters.
“We continue to build out competencies and resources around our advanced solutions and specialty business, and we really accelerated our investment in digital.”
Ingram distributes IT products ranging from Apple’s iPhone to Cisco’s network equipment and counts big-tech giants such as Microsoft and Nvidia among its suppliers.
Platinum Equity struck a $7.2 billion deal for Ingram in 2020. It continues to be the company’s controlling shareholder.
Ingram originally went public in 1996 and traded on the NYSE until 2016, when Chinese conglomerate HNA Group acquired it for $6 billion.
The offering was underwritten by a syndicate of Wall Street investment banks, led by Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and J.P. Morgan.
(Reporting by Manya Saini and Arasu Kannagi Basil in Bengaluru and Echo Wang in New York; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)
