Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Retail trading platform eToro has made confidential filings to US regulators in a significant step towards an initial public offering in New York this year that could value the business at more than $5bn.
The group, whose largest market is the UK, is the latest to avoid listing in London, which has been struggling to attract and retain high-profile company listings.
Chief executive and founder Yoni Assia told the Financial Times last year that a US listing would give the company access to a broader range of investors than a presence on the UK market.
“Very few of our global clients would trade UK shares,” he said. “Something in the US market creates a pool of both deep liquidity and deep awareness for those assets that are trading in the US.”
The company, founded in 2007, allows customers to trade assets such as stocks and cryptocurrencies. It managed $11.3bn of customer assets across 3mn accounts, the FT reported last March.
Its progress towards a listing comes as other start-ups stay private for longer, frustrating the hopes of investors and bankers for blockbuster stock market flotations.
The group has now submitted confidential filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission for a US IPO, people familiar with the matter said. It could list in New York as soon as the second quarter of this year, one of the people added.
A confidential filing with US regulators allows companies to privately move forward with their plans to list, before publicly unveiling their documents closer to pursuing a flotation.
The company’s valuation has plunged since its first attempt to go public in 2021 through a $10.4bn deal with a blank cheque company. Assia said previously that eToro ended that attempt in 2022 after realising “the markets aren’t there”, as the boom in blank cheque vehicles known as Spacs imploded.
EToro was valued at $3.5bn in a 2023 funding round that raised $250mn from investors including SoftBank and market data company Ion Group.
The business could now be valued at more than $5bn in its upcoming IPO, said one of the people familiar with the flotation plans. Banks including Goldman Sachs, Jefferies and UBS are working with the company on its plans, the people said.
EToro, Goldman, Jefferies and UBS declined to comment.
Read the full article here