Tradeweb raises $1.1 billion in year’s second-largest IPO in US

Bloomberg

Tradeweb Markets Inc. raised $1.1 billion in the second-largest US initial public offering this year, after again increasing the number of shares it was selling and then pricing them above the marketed range.
The bond and derivative trading platform sold 40 million shares for $27 apiece, according to a statement. Tradeweb had originally planned to sell 27.3 million shares for $24 to $26 each and had boosted the size of the offering to 36.25 million shares to buy back more
of the stock held by its bank investors. The IPO values
the New York-based company at about $6 billion based on its filings.
Tradeweb intends to use proceeds to buy shares held by eight of the 11 large banks that own stakes in the company, including Bank of America Corp., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and UBS Group AG, according to its registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Despite a slow start, 2019 is shaping up to be a blockbuster year for US IPOs. Lyft Inc.’s $2.34 billion IPO week has been the biggest listing this year. Levi Strauss & Co.’s $623 million offering in
February ranked third. Tradeweb’s IPO is also the biggest for a financial services company in the US since online lender GreenSky Inc. raised $874 million in May.
The offering follows benefits administrator Alight Inc.’s decision in March to postpone plans to raise up to $800 million in an IPO.
Alight and Tradeweb are both owned by private equity firm Blackstone Group LP, which led the $17 billion acquisition last year of Trad-eweb parent Refinitiv from Thomson Reuters Corp.