Canned tuna and Napolina owner Princes Group plans $2 billion London IPO

By Yadarisa Shabong and DhanushVignesh Babu

(Reuters) -Italian-owned Princes Group is planning an initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange for its British food and beverage company, it said on Friday, in a boost for London's struggling IPO market. 

The Liverpool-based company, which owns brands such as Princes Tuna, Napolina Pasta and Naked Noodle, is seeking a valuation of about 1.5 billion pounds ($2.02 billion), according to a person familiar with the situation.   

The company, acquired by NewPrinces S.p.A for 700 million pounds in July last year, did not say how many shares it plans to offer or how much it plans to raise.

London's IPO market is on track for its lowest ever number of listings this year, with several UK companies - including Unilever's ice cream business - opting to list overseas, hoping for better valuations.

However, there have been signs of a potential pick up in activity, with Beauty Tech Group making its London market debut on Friday and British bank Shawbrook considering filing for an IPO in the coming days, according to sources. 

"As we did with the successful listing of Newlat Food in 2019, we are not selling any shares. Instead, we are raising new capital to accelerate our growth strategy," Princes Group Chair Angelo Mastrolia said in a statement, referring to the Milan listing of Princes parent Newlat, which changed its name to NewPrinces after the 2024 acquisition of its UK peer.

The UK is NewPrinces' largest market by revenue.

Princes Group generated 2.1 billion pounds in pro forma revenues in 2024. It exports its products to more than 60 countries from 23 factories across the UK, Europe and Mauritius, and employs about 7,800 people.  

The company said it planned to use proceeds from the IPO to make acquisitions to support growth.

Princes Group has engaged BNP Paribas, Rabobank, Peel Hunt and UniCredit as joint global co-ordinators and joint bookrunners and Société Générale as joint bookrunner in the event that the Offer proceeds.

($1 = 0.7434 pounds)

(Reporting by DhanushVignesh Babu and Yadarisa Shabong in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala, Janane Venkatraman, Elaine Hardcastle)