LADbible Parent Valued at £360 Million in London IPO
LADbible Parent Valued at £360 Million in London IPO
(Bloomberg) --
LBG Media Plc shares gained as they started trading in London after an initial public offering that valued the owner of viral content publisher LADbible at 360 million pounds ($477 million).
Shares were trading at 195 pence as of 11:50 a.m. in the U.K., 11% above the 175 pence IPO price.
The company raised 30 million pounds in the listing on London’s junior AIM market, while shareholders sold 81 million pounds worth of existing stock. Sellers include Chief Executive Officer Alexander Solomou and Chief Operating Officer Arian Kalantari, who co-founded the business in 2012 while they were at university.
The listing follows digital media peer BuzzFeed’s debut as a public company in the U.S. earlier this month. BuzzFeed Inc. had a market value of $768 million as of Tuesday’s close in New York.
LBG, based in Manchester, England, operates 10 core content brands, including flagships LADbible and UNILAD, and has a global audience of more than a billion every year, according to a statement.
The term “lad” is a Britishism referring to a young male, but has come to mean someone who “engages in typical testosterone-driven behavior,” according to the Urban Dictionary website. LADbible has sought to shake off its single-gender image, launching female-focused brand Tyla.
Zeus Capital arranged the IPO.
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