Shares in the company rose from their initial 240p price to close at 265p, increasing the firm’s market cap from GBP 4.8 billion to GBP 5.3 billion on its first day of conditional trading, telegraph.co.uk reports. Worldpay initiated the IPO despite a bidding war in August, 2015, with bids from JP Morgan’s private equity arm, German-based payments company Wirecard, private equity firms Blackstone and Hellman & Friedman and French rival Ingenico.
The bidding companies valued Worldpay at more than GBP 6 billion, excluding its GBP 2.3 billion debt pile. The stock market sale has generated proceeds of GBP 2 billion, of which Worldpay will receive almost GBP 900 million to be used to pay down GBP 34 million of its debts and fund expansion.
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