BrazilOC&C provided strategic support to Auto1's public offering
OC&C’s M&A team has seen one of its clients in Germany make a successful debut on the Frankfurt stock exchange.
The IPO of Berlin-based scale-up Auto1 was a huge success for the team that orchestrated the public float, with shares opening at 55 euros a share – 45% above the price at which they were sold to investors in an oversubscribed offering that raised €1.8 billion. Auto1 was the largest IPO in Germany since TeamViewer’s offering in September 2019.
Founded in 2012 by Christian Bertermann and Hakan Koç, Auto1 has grown to become Europe’s largest marketplace for second-hand cars. The group sells cars via online auctions to more than 60,000 professional dealers, while its retail brand Autohero is for consumers looking to purchase used vehicles on the internet. In 2020, Auto1 facilitated the sale of more than 650,000 vehicles.
“We’re mega-happy with how the IPO has gone,” chief executive Christian Bertermann told Reuters in an interview. “It shows how much confidence we’ve built up among existing and new investors with our business plan: there is a better way to buy a car and that is online.”
The firm’s IPO and business plan was supported by a cohort of bankers and consultants. A team from OC&C Strategy Consultants – led by Mostyn Goodwin, Henri-Thierry Toutounji and Mark Jannaway – provided commercial and strategic market analysis for Auto1 during the IPO process.
“We were able to provide a unique combination of great depth of expertise in Auto 1’s target automotive markets, and insight into key distribution trends,” said the trio of OC&C partners.
Citigroup, BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank were joint global coordinators. Barclays, HSBC, Numis and Royal Bank of Canada were bookrunners, while Commerzbank, Credit Agricole, Mizuho Financial Group and Wells Fargo were co-lead managers.
Auto1 will plough most of its IPO receipts from tech-hungry investors into building its Autohero retail brand, and into expanding its geographic footprint.
Meanwhile, for the Frankfurt stock exchange, the IPO could not have come at a better time. In 2020 only seven companies went public on the exchange, raising $1.3 billion combined, according to data from Bloomberg.
