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This blog post first appeared first on old medium publication (https://medium.com/startuprad-io), and was moved to this blog with the relaunch of our website in summer 2024.
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The IPO
The IPO of Auto1 was long anticipated. We talked about it frequently in our news. Now it took place and it was a smashing success. The first day of trading saw the share price going from 38€ up to 55 €, which is a 45% share price appreciation and not bad for the first day of trading. Auto1 raised with this IPO 1.8 bn € at Frankfurt Stock Exchange, valuing the total company at approx. 12 bn €. This is quite a valuation for a company, just eight years old.
Auto1
Auto1 makes money as a platform for used cars. They connect dealers and consumers in Europe and allows them to buy and sell used cars on the internet. Their brand name in Germany is wirkaufendeinauto.de (we buy your car), generating 3.5 bn € in revenue in 2019.
Softbank
Japanese Softbank invested in January 2018, at a valuation of 2.9 bn € and took a ~20% stake, paying 460 m € (according to FT). This 19.99% stake is currently held in the SVF Midgard (Cayman) Ltd, according to the IPO prospectus. At the 12 bn € valuation, this would mean the value of the investment is now worth 2.4 bn Euros (2.87 bn US$), up more than 620% from three years before.
Germany’s Newly Minted Billionaires
This led us to the two founders Hakan Koç, who holds 15.69%, and his co-founder Christian Bertermann holding 15.69% as well, at the time of the IPO. Given the 12 bn valuation (that makes it easier to calculate) their stake is worth approx. 1,88 bn € (2.25 bn US$), turning them overnight into billionaires. According to the prospectus Mr. Koc will hold 12.41% (~ 1,49 bn €) and Mr. Bertermann 12.62% (~ 1,51 bn €) after the IPO. Congratulations gentleman, well done.
It remains our hope that both successful entrepreneurs keep investing in startups and pass along some of their skills that sever them so well.
(Update) Why this matters
We have gotten some feedback on this blog post — thank you by the way. We realized, we missed one important aspect, so we amend this post just a little bit. This is the first significant IPO in Germany, by a startup, which was lead by its founders and generated significant wealth for them.
We had IPOs before e.g. Delivery Hero, but the Delivery Hero CEO Mr. Österberg only owned 0.66% (1.003.077) and options (846.600) of the company at the time the prospectus for the IPO was written in 2017. Another case is Team Viewer, which IPOed in Frankfurt as well. Team Viewer was owned by PE fund Permira (via TigerLuxOne in Luxembourg), so it also did not generate entrepreneur wealth.
This is an important point since this serves as an incentive to aspiring entrepreneurs, it shows investors a potential exit route and we are sure both founders will be investing some of the generated wealth in the startup scene.
Our sources for this article:
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