JAB's $3.3 Billion Coffee IPO Moves Closer With Banks Selected

(Bloomberg) -- The billionaire Reimann family’s JAB Holding Co. is moving ahead with preparations for an initial public offering of its sprawling coffee empire, which owns brands from Caribou to Peet’s, people with knowledge of the matter said.

The investment firm has picked BNP Paribas SA and JPMorgan Chase & Co. to advise on the planned listing, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. JAB is considering raising about 3 billion euros ($3.3 billion) in an Amsterdam IPO of the business, which could take place as soon as the first half of the year, the people said.

The offering could become the biggest listing on a European exchange since manufacturer Knorr-Bremse AG raised 3.85 billion euros in October 2018, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Representatives for BNP, JAB and JPMorgan declined to comment.

JAB said in December it plans to combine its Jacobs Douwe Egberts and Peet’s units in a single entity before a possible listing. JAB’s coffee unit is expected to generate about 7 billion euros in annual revenue, one of the people said.

The Luxembourg-based investment firm has spent tens of billions of dollars investing in brands including Jacobs, Stumptown and Intelligentsia, challenging Nestle SA and Starbucks Corp. for leadership in the industry. JAB has also acquired fast-food brands ranging from Krispy Kreme Doughnuts to the Pret A Manger sandwich chain.

To contact the reporters on this story: Myriam Balezou in London at mbalezou@bloomberg.net;Thomas Buckley in London at tbuckley25@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Dinesh Nair at dnair5@bloomberg.net, ;Eric Pfanner at epfanner1@bloomberg.net, Ben Scent, Andrew Noël

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