Dun & Bradstreet Trades Higher After IPO Raised $1.7 Billion

(Bloomberg) -- Dun & Bradstreet Holdings Inc., one of Wall Street’s oldest data and analytics providers opened 14% higher in its trading debut after raising $1.7 billion in an upsized U.S. initial public offering.

Shares of the Short Hills, New Jersey-based company traded as high as 18% above the $22 IPO price. Dun & Bradstreet sold 78.3 million shares Tuesday above the top of its price range, expanding the offering after earlier marketing 65.75 million shares for $19 to $21 each.

The stock was up 16% at $25.29 at 1:28 p.m. giving Dun & Bradstreet a market value of roughly $10.6 billion.

Dun & Bradstreet returns to the public market less than two years after it was taken private by an investor group led by former Blackstone Group Inc. dealmaker Chinh Chu’s CC Capital, Cannae Holdings Inc. and Thomas H. Lee Partners. In 2018, the consortium reached a deal to acquire the company for about $5.4 billion in cash valuing it at $6.9 billion, including debt.

The private equity owners brought on new management following the takeover, cut costs, incorporated new technology and increased its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.

“We built on what was already there to create a newly energized, newly accountable Dun & Bradstreet,” said Stephen Daffron, president of the data provider, during an interview on Wednesday. Proceeds will be used to lower the company’s debt levels and give it better free cash flow to invest in growth, he said.

Daffron added that the Covid-19 crisis has led to clients asking the company to help solve supply chain issues.

The private equity consortium will control about 66% of the voting power after the IPO, according to the filing. Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, competes with Dun & Bradstreet in providing financial information.

The U.S. IPO the third-largest of the year behind Royalty Pharma Plc and Warner Music Group Corp. June was the most active month for U.S. IPOs since September 2014, when Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. priced its $25 billion offering, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. A combined $17.6 billion were raised from 44 listings, recovering from a drought in the beginning of the pandemic. Only $2.5 billion were raised in March, the data shows.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Bank of America Corp. led offering, along with JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Barclays Plc. Dun & Bradstreet’s shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol DNB.

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