Luxury watch platform Chronext names price range for IPO

Philipp Man

The founder of the luxury watch platform Chronext sees the IPO as “part of branding”.

Dusseldorf The watch trading platform Chronext has announced the start of its IPO on the Zurich Swiss Exchange (SIX). The price range for the shares on offer was set at 16 to 21 Swiss francs per share and will result in an offer volume of around 152 to 200 million francs. If the over-allotment option is fully exercised, it could even be up to CHF 230 million.

The offer comprises 9,524,000 new shares, which will be reissued from the company’s share capital in return for a cash contribution. In addition, the existing shareholders will provide up to 1,428,600 existing shares for a possible over-allotment of up to 15 percent of the shares sold as part of the IPO.

The bookbuilding process is expected to end on October 6, 2021. The final offer price is expected to be published on or around October 7, 2021. The first trading day is expected to take place on or around October 8, 2021. Chronext will trade under the ticker symbol CXT.

If the shares offered are placed in full and the over-allotment option is fully exercised, the company’s market capitalization will amount to 520 to 680 million francs and the free float will be around 32.5 percent. The market capitalization is to increase further by converting a convertible bond at the IPO to up to 702 million francs (650 million euros).

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The IPO is associated with a capital increase. The company intends to use this money for further expansion. “We want to invest half of the capital from the IPO in expanding the technical infrastructure and building up the brand,” said founder Philipp Man recently to the Handelsblatt. “We want to use the other half to develop new markets.”

Up to ten IPOs in Switzerland in 2021

Trading in luxury watches over the Internet makes up only a small part of the entire business, which the consulting firm McKinsey estimates at around 80 billion euros for new and used watches. However, it is growing very rapidly.

The online marketplace Chronext, founded in 2013, has also grown by an average of 46 percent per year over the past 24 months and generated sales of 101 million euros last year. In the current year, the company expects an increase of around 40 percent.

Thanks to what is presumably a strong second half of the year, the Zurich Stock Exchange could book a total of around ten new entries this year, the highest figure since 2018. In the first half of 2021, only Montana Aerospace and Polypeptides were added, while in 2020 there were only two companies.

The IPO of the company Medmix, which has been spun off from the Swiss mechanical engineering company Sulzer, has already been announced. Telecommunications provider Salt, document management company Swiss Post Solutions and clean room supplier Skan have also planned an IPO on SIX.

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