Eddie Stobart Logistics (ESL) has officially begun trading on London’s AIM market after raising £122m ($155m).
The company first announced its intention to list last month.
The shares were offered at £1.60 a share, valuing the company at £572.7m on admission. In total 245m shares were sold for £392m, with existing shareholders offloading 169.3m of these and the company selling 76.25m new shares.
It has also emerged that UK-based fund management firm Woodford Asset Management has become the largest shareholder in Greenwhitestar Holding Company (GHC) with a 19.9% interest in the business. Greenwhitestar is jointly owned by DBAY (51%) and London Stock Exchange-listed Stobart Group (49%).
ESL has also bought e-commerce specialist iForce for £37m in cash and £8m worth of shares.
Alex Laffey, ESL’s CEO, said: “We have received strong interest from investors and we are excited to begin this new period as an independent company with the appropriate capital structure to take advantage of growth opportunities in the supply chain and logistics market.”
In the past few years, non-core operations have been disposed of and the company has focused on growing a balanced portfolio across core sectors, namely: e-commerce, manufacturing, industrial and bulk, retail and consumer.
While Eddie Stobart did sell its Stobart Automotive, UK vehicle carrier business to BCA in 2015 for £16m, the company still offers a full range of vehicle logistics services in Europe.
In Northern Europe it moves vehicles and OEM components from production plants to dealerships in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium.
