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Springer Nature, one of the world’s biggest academic publishers, has announced plans for a long-delayed initial public offering that would allow its private equity owner to cash out.
The Berlin-based company, which is partly owned by private equity group BC Partners and publishes journals including Nature and Scientific American, said on Thursday that it planned to raise €200mn in a listing before the end of the year.
The IPO could value the publisher at roughly €7bn, according to people familiar with the matter, which would make it one of the biggest European flotations this year.
BC Partners, which first bought into the publisher in 2013 and now owns a 47 per cent stake, will sell shares in the listing. Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, a privately owned company that owns the remaining 53 per cent, does not intend to sell shares.
Springer Nature posted revenues of €1.9bn and adjusted operating profit of €511mn last year.
The IPO, which could be completed in the second half of 2024, has been long delayed; an initial attempt was halted in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The listing will be the first big market debut in Europe in the second half of the year, after several IPOs across the continent earlier in 2024 were carried out successfully, including Swiss skincare company Galderma.
Prior to this year Europe had endured a slowing of IPOs as rising interest rates and choppy markets deterred companies from seeking listings given uncertain investor appetite.
However, a stabilising economic outlook, lower rates and a desire by private equity groups to cash out in some of their investments has led to more deals this year.
Springer Nature, which competes with UK-listed rival Relx, estimated that the size of the global research publishing market in 2023 was €10.2bn. The group sees the use of artificial intelligence and other technology as a big driver of future growth in its trade publications and data.
Frank Vrancken Peeters, chief executive of Springer Nature, said: “Springer Nature is well positioned to continue to deliver in a resilient and growing research market by employing technology to generate real benefits for the academic community.”
