Nearly a dozen Russian companies have hit the public markets since early 2020, with at least four more expected to start trading publicly before the end of the year.
In recent months, the slow drip of Russian initial public offerings (IPOs) is turning into a steady stream and, perhaps, an oncoming flood.
In mid-October, Renaissance Insurance Group raised $250 million—cut from an initial target of $290 million—to become the first insurance company to raise capital on the Moscow Exchange. Founded in 1997 by American financier Boris Jordan, who also launched cannabis producer and distributor Curaleaf, Renaissance Insurance Group is Russia’s seventh-largest group medical insurer and the largest provider of employer-sponsored benefit plans.
Nearly a dozen Russian companies have hit the public markets since early 2020, with at least four more expected to start trading publicly before the end of the year. Car-sharing firm Delimobil, which has a fleet of approximately 16,000 vehicles, filed for a roughly $350 million offer. Real estate advertiser Cian hopes to raise a similar amount with its IPO.
And that’s just the start. Information technology services provider Softline, which generated revenue of around $1.8 billion through operations in 50 countries in 2020, aims to raise around $400 million in an IPO that is expected in the coming weeks. And the country’s largest stock-trading platform, SPB Exchange—formerly known as the St. Petersburg Exchange, in Russia’s second-largest city—hopes to raise $150 million in an offering on its exchange before selling shares in a US listing next year.
Moscow bankers have kept busy through the pandemic with big deals earlier in the year, including low-price retailer Fix Price, which raised $2 billion in March. The following month, forestry holding company Segezha Group tapped investors for $400 million in a Moscow Exchange offering.
Russia isn’t the only hot emerging market enjoying an IPO boom. Abu Dhabi–based fertilizer producer Fertiglobe Holding raised nearly $800 million in an Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange listing valued around $5.8 billion. The deal—the third-largest IPO ever for the bourse—was priced at the top end of the indicated range and was 22 times oversubscribed, according to local reports. Just a few weeks earlier, the IPO of the drilling unit of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) raised $1.1 billion in the biggest-ever offering on the exchange.
