Shares of Swedish vegan food and drink product manufacturer Oatly Group AB jumped 30% in their market debut, valuing the Swedish oatmilk maker at approximately $13 billion, as demand for plant-based food products surges globally.
IPO Details
Shares of Sweden-based Oatly, the investors of which also include Oprah Winfrey, rapper Jay Z, actress Natalie Portman and former Starbucks Corp head Howard Schultz, opened at $22 a share.
The vegan milk maker, which has been widely credited for popularising oatmilk in several countries, went public at $17 a share, and raised $1.4 billion in its US initial public offering (IPO).
The company said that it priced 84.4 million American depositary shares in the IPO at $17 each, at the top of its indicated range.
It was previously reported that Oatly was for a valuation of approximately $10 billion in its US IPO, and, according to a previous regulatory filing previous, it previously planned to offer nearly 65 million American Depositary Shares and an additional 20 million shares from existing shareholders priced between $15 and $17 apiece.
It was previously reported that the company planned to raise approximately $1.43 billion through the IPO.
It was also previously reported that Oatly plans to use the proceeds from the IPO to clear debt and fund its expansion.
Morgan Stanley, J.P.Morgan and Credit Suisse are among the lead underwriters for the offering.
Oatly Products And Operations
Oatly, which sells in more than 20 markets across Europe, the US and China, and currently sells its products in more than 7,500 retail stores and approximately 10,000 coffee shops across the US alone since entering the market in 2017, is known chiefly for its oat milk products and has tie-ups with several US cafés, including Starbucks. Oatly is so popular in some key markets that it has faced supply shortages.
Oatly Chief Executive Statement
"The proceeds that we're going to get is going to be used to build out the capacity across these three continents, where we are building the demand," Oatly chief executive Toni Petersson said in an interview. "Demand keeps organically increasing all the time. So we have had a hard time keeping up."
Additional Oatly Information
Oatly, which was founded by brothers Rickard and Björn Öste in 1990, has benefitted from surging interest in companies that care about environmental, social and governance issues.
Oatly, which mentions the word "sustainability" more than a 100 times in its regulatory filing, has said that, on average, a litre of Oatly product consumed in place of cow's milk results in approximately 80% less greenhouse gas emissions, 79% less land usage and 60% less energy consumption.
Last year, Oatly raised $200 million in a star-studded investment round led by private-equity firm Blackstone Group and including Winfrey, Natalie Portman, an entertainment company founded by Jay Z and Schultz.
Verlinvest, the investment company of the family behind brewer Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev), remains Oatly's majority owner through a joint venture with Chinese government-owned China Resources, which invested in the company in 2016.
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