The Year's Biggest Health IPO Faces Street Review After Hot Start

(Bloomberg) -- Avantor Inc., the year’s second largest public offering behind Uber Technologies Inc., will see a stream of fresh research from the more than 20 banks that helped it go public.

Analysts will likely focus on the manufacturer and distributor of life science products’ range of offerings and diverse services, but its heavy debt load may draw some criticism. Shares of the Radnor, Pennsylvania-based company are up more than 20% from a May public offering compared with a less than 1% move for both the S&P 500 Index and Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Tuesday marks the expiration of a 25-day quiet period that applies to analysts at banks that underwrote the IPO. Lead underwriters include Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., with a wide range of other banks such as Barclays, Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse also in on the deal.

The company’s health offerings help drugmakers research, develop and manufacture therapies ranging from traditional pills to next generation compounds like gene therapies. Avantor’s portfolio of products includes offerings from bands like Nusil Technology, Macron Fine Chemicals and Puritan Products.

To contact the reporter on this story: Bailey Lipschultz in New York at blipschultz@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Catherine Larkin at clarkin4@bloomberg.net, Scott Schnipper

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