Aston Martin targeting £5bn valuation
The British luxury carmaker, Aston Martin is targeting a valuation of £5bn when it lists its shares on the London Stock Exchange on 3rd October 2018.
Andy Palmer, CEO of Aston Martin said ”We have seen almost unprecedented investor interest. This has always been part of the dream to put a car company back on the FTSE100 and we’ll be the only car company in the index since Jaguar delisted almost 30-years ago.”
To qualify for the FTSE 100 on today’s prices, Aston Martin would need a market capitalisation of more than £4.7bn. The IPO was covered within a day showing robust investor appetite for its shares.
Andy Palmer and the rest of the management team, with the company’s prospectus revealing that the CEO is in line for £22m in shares over the next four years, part of an incentive plan put in place when Mr Palmer joined Aston Martin in 2014 with the task of creating a business plan for the loss making carmaker.
If the shares trade at midpoint of the expected range, Mr Palmer will collect £5.6m a year in stock until 2022 and in total senior managers will collect £20m under the scheme.
Aston Martin is aiming for similar racy earnings multiple to Ferrari, as their shares will be prices about £22.50 each according to an announcement from the company. The top end of the range would put Aston Martin 24 times 2017 earnings. Compared to Ferrari’s 22 times.
Once listed Mr Palmer will receive £1.2m in salary as well as a possible £5m in shares and bonuses that are related to the company’s performance.
Mr Palmer said the indicated price for Aston was 10 times the £470m paid by Kuwaiti backers paid to buy the business from Ford in 2007.
Under Palmer’s leadership, the group set out to launch a new car every year for seven years. It has already launched three of the cars – The DB11, The Vantage and the DBS from the business plan and plans to launch DBX next year, the first sport utility vehicle in the brands history.
Aston is seeking to cash in on the demand for high-performance luxury SUVs that has seen both Lamborghini and Maserati enter the market.
Aston’s current owners, ,Italian group Investindutrial and Kuwaiti funds Adeem Investment and Primewagon will be subject to 180-day lock-up.