After a brief period in private hands, a familiar name in corporate financial analytics is returning to the stock exchange. Dun & Bradstreet has launched an initial public offering (IPO) and is about to be listed anew on the market.
All told, the company floated just over 78.3 million shares of its common stock, priced at $22 each, to raise roughly $1.7 billion. This gives the company an initial market capitalization of around $8.8 billion. The shares are scheduled to trade on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) starting Wednesday under Dun & Bradstreet's old ticker symbol DNB.
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Also, the company's sizable underwriting syndicate holds a 30-day option to collectively purchase up to almost 11.75 million additional shares. The syndicate is led by Goldman Sachs (GS 1.68%), Bank of America Securities, JPMorgan Chase's J.P. Morgan, and Barclays.
The issue has been increased, both in volume and in price. Previously, the company planned to float 65.75 million shares at $19 to $21 per share.
Dun & Bradstreet will use the net proceeds of the issue to redeem some or all of its series A preferred stock. These securities were issued in early 2019 to finance taking the company private. All told, it netted just under $1.03 billion from that issue.
Dun & Bradstreet's issue caps a busy month for IPOs; in June, nearly 150 companies went public, collectively raising almost $18 billion, according to statistics cited by Bloomberg.
A veteran of many IPO syndicates, Goldman Sachs was involved in more than a few of those issues. On Tuesday, the venerable investment bank's stock slightly outpaced the wider equities market, rising by almost 2.2%.
