After months of rumors, financial software firm Misys, based in the U.K., was ready to go public. Reports earlier this month said the company would seek about $632 million on the London Stock Exchange and could be valued at nearly $7 billion after the float.
It would have been the largest tech IPO in London, according to analysts. But this week, the IPO plans came crashing down.
Reports Thursday (Oct. 27) said Misys has scrapped what would have been its return to the public market due to a lack of interest. The firm has reportedly blamed uncertain market conditions as its reason for the retreat.
“Despite encouraging institutional support, Misys … has decided not to proceed with its potential initial public offering at the current time due to market conditions,” the firm said in a statement released Thursday.
While Misys isn’t the first to cancel its IPO in recent weeks — just one day earlier, Spain-based telecom giant Telefonica also said it would cancel its own IPO plans for now — it is the largest to do so, reports noted.
Its float would have aimed to sell a quarter of the company with the IPO, and the firm had spent a week on book-building, reports said, surprising some analysts with its decision to cancel its float. Earlier this month, the company’s valuation dropped by more than $1 billion, which had put plans of entering the FTSE 100 ranks in jeopardy.
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A source at the time of the suspected devaluation noted that the magnitude of it was shielded by the decline in sterling.
“The IPO market is tough at the moment, and investors are pushing back on price,” the source told reporters. “U.K. investors are saying that Misys should be priced at a discount to Sage.”
Misys was a public firm before its acquisition by Vista Equity Partners in 2012.
