Victorian Plumbing makes history as biggest ever float on AIM
Yesterday morning, following the stock’s debut at 262p on London's AIM market, the group was valued at £850m. By the end of the day, shares were at 330p, valuing the company at over £1.04 billion.
In particular, the company’s £850 million market capitalisation upon admission makes the business the largest company ever to list on London’s Alternative Investment Market.
Commenting on Victorian's first day of dealings, Mark Radcliffe, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Company said: "Today is a landmark day in the history of Victorian Plumbing. The successful completion of our IPO and admission to AIM is an exciting next step on our growth journey.”
“The first day “pop” will be welcomed by investment bankers as a sign that there is still life in the market amid concerns that investor fatigue was causing listings to be pulled or be priced at the bottom of their range,” wrote Ashley Armstrong, Retail Editor at The Times today.
According to the Financial Times, JPMorgan and US investment manager, Kayne Anderson Rudnick, will be amongst the group’s biggest non-family shareholders following the listing.
Liverpool-based Victorian Plumbing, which was founded back in 2000, is one of the UK’s largest online participants for bathroom products and accessories. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, the business has seen a huge rise in demand for its product portfolio.
On Tuesday, shares in Victorian Plumbing jumped as high as 329p before falling back to 321p during late afternoon trade. The stock was trading 2.70% higher at 337.23p this morning.
Victorian Plumbing is amongst several stocks that have benefitted from the pandemic-driven boom in home improvement projects. On Monday, Travis Perkins attributed its continued robust performance to 'the strength of both the domestic and commercial repairs, maintenance and improvement markets.'
Radcliffe, who originally founded Victorian Plumbing from his parents’ garden shed, has since grown the company into a business with more than 500 workers and a turnover of £209 million.
As the company’s largest shareholder, Radcliffe will divest £212m-worth of shares, thereby reducing his holding from 72% of the company’s issued share capital to 46% in total.
The Company, which operates as a digital business, offers more than 24,000 bathroom products and accessories across its sites, selling both to consumers and trade customers.
In the six months to March 2021, sales were £140m, up 45% from the same period in 2020. Looking ahead, the company said it expects revenue growth in the second half of the current year to be a more modest 20%, and just under that level in subsequent years, the FT wrote.
Investors Chronicle said Victorian Plumbing will aim to widen its offering and drive more sales from trade customers, ‘who typically spend more per order and provide a higher level of repeat business.’ It stated that at present, around 14% of total revenue comes from the trade.
Looking ahead, the Group said it is also looking to expand into continental European markets such as France, Germany and Spain, which it believes have similar dynamics to the UK.
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