Finance
Czech arms maker CSG soars on trading debut to hit $35 billion valuation
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on January 23, 2026
3 min readLast updated: January 23, 2026
Global Banking & Finance Review®
Company
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on January 23, 2026
3 min readLast updated: January 23, 2026
Czech CSG targets a €25B valuation in a record defence IPO in Amsterdam, with high investor demand and significant market impact.
By Charlie Conchie and Jason Hovet
LONDON/PRAGUE, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Czechoslovak Group's shares rose as much as 32% in their Amsterdam debut on Friday, pushing its market capitalisation to more than 30 billion euros ($35.22 billion) following a record fundraising for a defence company listing.
CSG, seeking to tap into a surge in military spending, sold 30 million new shares and up to 122 million existing shares, including an over-allotment option, in an initial public offering priced at 25 euros each, raising up to 3.8 billion euros.
Michael Strnad, the 33-year-old owner of the company, will net just under 3 billion euros in the deal, including the over-allotment, while the rest of the proceeds will go to the company, CSG said.
The offering for up to 15.2% of the company gave CSG an initial market capitalisation of 25 billion euros ($29.30 billion). By 0943 GMT, CSG's market value had risen to 31.6 billion euros with shares trading at 31.60 euros, up 26.4%. They had climbed as high as 33.00 euros in early trading.
TAPPING INTO DEFENCE SECTOR BOOM
Investors are piling money into the sector and European governments pledge to ramp up defence spending following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. European defence stocks have touched record highs this year.
Strnad told Reuters this month that one of the reasons for the listing was to use stock as potential acquisition currency. Recent acquisitions include its $2.2 billion purchase in 2024 of leading U.S. small ammunition maker Kinetic, owner of brands such as Remington.
At current prices, CSG has a larger market capitalisation than Czech utility CEZ, the country's biggest listed company.
CSG's key customers include Ukraine and it is one of the world's fastest‑growing defence companies, producing large- and small-calibre ammunition, heavy ground equipment and radar.
ORDER BOOKS ATTRACTED SWIFT DEMAND
If fully exercised, CSG's offering would be the largest Amsterdam listing since KKR Private Equity Investors raised $5 billion in 2006, according to Dealogic.
Other large European defence groups, such as Franco-German tankmaker KNDS, are also set to list this year.
Order books on the CSG offering were quickly covered on Tuesday, a bookrunner said. Funds managed by Artisan Partners, BlackRock and Al-Rayyan Holdings, a subsidiary of the Qatar Investment Authority, have committed to cornerstone the deal with 300 million euros each.
Led by Strnad, whose father began trading old Soviet-era military equipment in the 1990s, CSG has built up its order pipeline and said in November that revenue would rise to 7.4–7.6 billion euros this year, from the more than 6.4 billion expected for 2025.
It targets a dividend payout of 30%-40% of net profit, payable from 2027.
(Reporting by Charlie Conchie in London, Jason Hovet, and Michal Aleksandrowicz in Gdansk. Editing by Anousha Sakoui, Louise Heavens and Jane Merriman)
An Initial Public Offering (IPO) is the process through which a private company offers shares to the public for the first time, allowing it to raise capital from public investors.
Valuation is the process of determining the current worth of an asset or a company, often based on factors like market conditions, earnings, and future growth potential.
Equity shares represent ownership in a company. Shareholders of equity shares have a claim on the company's assets and earnings, and they may receive dividends.
Market capitalization is the total market value of a company's outstanding shares, calculated by multiplying the share price by the total number of shares.
Investor demand refers to the level of interest and willingness of investors to purchase shares or securities of a company, often influenced by market conditions and company performance.
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