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Photo: Igor Golovniov / imago images / ZUMA Press
The online used car dealer Auto1 is serious about its long-awaited IPO.
As the company announced on Wednesday in Berlin, the initial listing on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange is planned for the first quarter.
Auto1 calculates that the issue of new shares for the IPO will generate gross proceeds of around one billion euros.
Of the remaining net amount, around 750 million euros are to be put into the further expansion of the business, the rest is expected to be used to repay an existing convertible bond.
The IPO of Auto1 was expected for a long time.
There was recently talk of a valuation of up to five billion euros for the company.
Auto1 boss Christian Bertermann and his CFO Markus Boser did not want to comment on these speculations on a conference call.
Details on the IPO such as the target price per share remain open for the time being.
Already more than three billion euros in sales
The Auto1 Group, founded in 2012 by Bertermann and member of the supervisory board Hakan Koc, has grown rapidly in recent years and is now active in more than 30 countries.
In 2019 Auto1 sold more than 615,000 vehicles and achieved a turnover of around 3.5 billion euros.
The company was able to almost double its revenues on average between 2014 and 2019.
According to its own information, the company now operates the largest wholesale platform for used cars in Europe under the “Auto1” brand.
The vehicles are sold to more than 60,000 commercial dealers across Europe via online auctions.
Under the “Autohero” brand, the group also sells used cars directly to consumers in nine European countries at fixed prices.
Car buyers in this country are likely to be familiar with the company through the heavily advertised online portal "wirkaufendeinauto".
After the expansion of business in recent years, the IPO is now the next "logical and consistent step," said company boss Bertermann.
The company intends to invest significantly in the next few years in order to further expand the “Autohero” brand and the operational business.
The ambitious goal of the Berliners is to also become the leading retailer for used cars in Europe.
Softbank as a major investor
While sales of new vehicles in Europe recently stalled because of the corona pandemic, Auto1 believes it is operating in a growing market: According to the company, used cars with a sales volume of around 600 billion euros were sold in Europe in 2019, and another one will be sold by 2025 Growth in the European Union (EU) of around 5 percent annually on average is expected.
At the same time, Auto1 should benefit from the fact that the European used car market is currently still very small and that the next online competitors such as Carvana and Vroom, with whom the company compares itself according to management, come from the USA.
In the heavily fragmented used car market, competition will therefore work in favor of those market participants "who have the strongest brands and the best platform."
In 2018, Softbank invested almost half a billion in Auto1, and a representative of the Japanese is currently on the supervisory board.
There is speculation in the market that Softbank could use the IPO to reduce or sell its stake.
The company had already sold some investments in the past in order to raise money.
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beb / dpa
