Worldpay Group Plc, the U.K. payment processor, gained as much as 7.4 percent on its debut after raising 2.16 billion pounds ($3.3 billion) in the largest London listing this year.
Worldpay priced shares at 240 pence and will receive about 948 million pounds from the sale, the London-based company said in a statement Tuesday. The stock was trading up 6.7 percent at 256 pence at 2:14 p.m. in London.
Worldpay's owners, Advent International Corp. and Bain Capital Partners, rebuffed buyout offers in favor of the initial public offering. The sale comes in a volatile market that saw issuers including Bayer AG's plastics unit Covestro and German industrial bearing maker Schaeffler AG reduce the size of their IPOs. Worldpay increased its offering to a 45 percent free float, without the over-allotment option, from 30 percent because of investor demand.
"The significant market volatility and macroeconomic uncertainty has resulted in a number of IPOs being put on hold this year," said Thomas Vita, an equity capital markets partner at law firm Norton Rose Fulbright. "While these underlying concerns remain, the pricing of an IPO of the size and profile of Worldpay almost invariably should have a positive effect on the market; it should help some companies considering IPOs to come off the fence."
Ingenico Group of France, private-equity bidders including Blackstone Group and Hellman & Friedman, as well as German payments processor Wirecard AG were among those competing to acquire Worldpay and had valued it at about 6 billion pounds, people familiar with the matter have said.
Auto Trader Group Plc garnered about $2.5 billion from an IPO in March, the largest in the U.K. after Worldpay, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Companies raised about $16 billion from London IPOs this year, down over a third from the same period last year.
Advent and Bain Capital bought 80 percent of Worldpay from Royal Bank of Scotland Plc in 2010 for 1.7 billion pounds, and acquired the rest of the stake in 2013. The company, which processes in-store, mobile and online payment transactions, reported earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of 375 million pounds last year, on revenue of 3.6 billion pounds, according to its website.
Bank of America Corp., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley managed the IPO, along with Credit Suisse Group AG, Barclays Plc and UBS AG. Lazard Ltd. advised the company, according to the statement.
