Travelport Worldwide Ltd has just raised $480 million in its initial public opening, with price at the high end of the proposed range. The company is a distribution service and e-commerce provider for the travel industry globally.
The company finally sold 300 shares at $16 per share, compared to the proposed range of $14-$16. The secondary market will start today and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The company has an enterprise value of $4.3 billion at the public offering price.
Travelport, which is headquartered in Atlanta, operates a global distribution system with three brands - Apollo, Galileo, and Worldspan. The system provides consolidation or aggregation, search and transaction processing services to travel agencies. This allows them to search, compare and book itinerary as well as pricing options across multiple travel providers such as airlines.
Last year, Travelport reported a net revenue of $2.076 billion.
Blackstone, a private equity firm who acquired the company last 2006, owns 9.5 percent of Travelport. Travelport's other investors are Angelo Gordon & Co., with a 17 percent stake, Q Investments LP with an 11 percent stake and Morgan Stanley with 7.6 percent stake. According to the prospectus, these investors are not selling shares in the initial public offering.
In 2010, the company planned to raise around $1.8 billion in a London IPO but the sale was canceled because of volatility which was caused by the European sovereign debt crisis. This recent IPO is Travelport's second attempt to go public in four years. The company is planning to use the proceeds to reduce its debt since it has posted losses in four of the past five years.
Sabre Corp., one of Travelport's competitors, already went public last April. They were able to raise $721 million, with shares valued below market range.
Underwriters of Travelport's IPO are Morgan Stanley, UBS AG, Credit Suisse Group AG and Deutsche Bank AG.
