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Successful numbers game:
The Berlin online used car dealer Auto1 Group takes 1.8 billion euros in its IPO, the founders become billionaires
Photo: Igor Golovniov / imago images / ZUMA Press
Germans still love their cars.
The Berlin online used car dealer Auto 1 also benefits from this: the start-up, founded in 2012, presented the largest German IPO since 2019 on Thursday.
The operator of the internet portal "wirkaufendeinauto.de" will earn 1.8 billion euros.
After the initial listing on Thursday in Frankfurt, Auto1 is valued at up to 7.9 billion euros.
The shares were allotted at 38 euros, at the upper end of the price range of 32 to 38 euros.
The accompanying banks had warned major investors in advance that their orders could only be fulfilled to a fraction due to the high demand.
The interest of the investors was overwhelming, said CEO
Christian Bertermann
(37) in advance.
For Bertermann and his co-founder
Hakan Koç
(36), the IPO will pay off in a special way.
As the prospectus on page 120 shows, Koç and Bertermann will still own large shares in Auto1 after the IPO: Koç's company HKVV GmbH will hold 12.41 percent in Auto 1 Group, Bertermann's company BM Digital 12.62 percent.
After the IPO, both together will have a quarter of Auto1's shares.
With an estimated valuation of almost 8 billion euros, both founders will become billionaires.
The new generation of founders is getting more out of tech IPOs
The windfall for the founders has been rare in German tech IPOs.
The founders of large German tech companies such as Zalando, Delivery Hero or HelloFresh only held comparatively small blocks of shares after the IPO.
The reason lies in the financing structure of the start-ups.
The highly valued German tech start-ups that have been listed on the stock exchange in recent years have almost without exception been financed by Rocket Internet, the former start-up incubator of the Samwer brothers.
Rocket CEO
Oliver Samwer
(48) was rather stingy
with shares for founders
.
HelloFresh CEO
Dominik Richter
(32) only held around 2 percent of the shares before the IPO, and Delivery Hero CEO
Niklas Östberg
(40) even less than one percent.
In contrast to Silicon Valley, the really big windfall for digital entrepreneurs did not happen for a long time.
With Auto1, started by a new generation of founders, that is now changing.
In the start-up phase, they were financed by donors such as Cherry Ventures, who claim far fewer shares for themselves.
Even after several financing rounds, around a quarter of the company remains in the hands of the founders.
Unsurprisingly, Auto1 intends to use the money from the IPO for expansion: "The IPO is the starting signal for the next stage in our growth story," said co-founder and CEO Christian Bertermann in advance.
The IPO is also paying off for Japan's Softbank
Photo: Flavio Lo Scalzo / REUTERS
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Auto1 is the largest IPO in Germany for almost a year and a half.
At that time, the Swabian software manufacturer TeamViewer had collected 2.2 billion euros.
The investment has paid off for its shareholders: since then, the shares have risen by more than two thirds.
The online used car dealer Auto1 experienced an astonishing increase in value even before it went public.
When the Japanese technology investor Softbank got involved a good two years ago, the valuation was still 2.9 billion euros.
The company is in the red: In the first nine months of 2020, sales fell by 19 percent to 2.05 billion euros, mainly due to the Corona crisis, and the loss fell from 91 to 83 million euros.
Auto1 itself will receive one billion euros when it goes public.
Bertermann intends to use the money to expand the lucrative sale of used cars to private customers under the "Autohero" brand.
The delivery should be celebrated with glass vans.
Auto1 passes older vehicles on to used car dealers.
The largest shareholder is the Japanese technology investor Softbank, which did not sell any shares when it went public and then still holds 16.9 percent of Auto1 shares.
The company founders Bertermann and Koç, on the other hand, turned part of their shareholdings into cash: CEO Bertermann collects 52 million euros, supervisory board Koc even 68 million euros.
A good 23 percent of the shares will be in free float.
The anchor investors Sequoia and Lone Pine alone subscribed for shares for 300 million euros.
After the IPO, buyers of a convertible bond from last year can also exchange some of their paper for Auto1 shares worth 300 million euros.
The initial public offering was organized by BNP Paribas, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank.
In contrast to last year, when seven mostly small IPOs just raised 1.06 billion euros, a whole series of stock market candidates are in the starting blocks in 2021: Vodafone's radio tower subsidiary Vantage Towers is just as advanced with the preparations as the laboratory service provider Synlab owned by financial investor Cinven.
The online car dealer Mobility Holding ("meinauto.de"), which is run by the former Sixt leasing manager Rudolf Rizzolli, is also hoping for a tailwind from Auto1.
wed / Reuters
