VseInstrumenti.ru holds IPO at lower price range in line with capitalization of 100 bln rubles

MOSCOW. July 5 (Interfax) - PJSC VI.ru , the parent company of the online home improvement retailer VseInstrumenti.ru, held an IPO at 200 rubles per share, the lower end of the price range, which was in line with the company's capitalization of 100 billion rubles, VI.ru said in a press release.

Free float is about 12% following the IPO.

The company set the IPO price range at 200 to 210 rubles per share on June 27.

"When determining the final offer price, the company's founders settled on the lower end in order to provide the maximum positive impetus for growth in the company's value at the very beginning of its public history despite the order book being oversubscribed several times at the upper price range," company CEO Valentin Farkhutdinov was quoted as saying in the press release.

Trading in Vi.Ru shares begins at 4 p.m. Moscow time on July 5 on the First Tier of the Moscow Exchange under the VSEH ticker listing.

"New shareholders have joined the story of our profitable growth, namely the largest private funds, management companies, mutual funds, pension funds, insurance companies, and retail investors," Farkhutdinov said.

Vi.Ru has also ensured a "balanced allocation" between institutional investors and retail investors, with around 79% of the offer volume allocated to the former group and about 15% allocated to the latter group, as well as about 6% allocated to the company's employees and partners.

VseInstrumenti.ru, which started operations in 2011, has more than 1,000 order pickup points in more than 300 cities, including all of Russia's cities with populations of at least one million, such as Moscow, St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod, as well as 23 warehouses in various regions of the country. The group's product assortment totaled over 1.5 million unique SKU at the end of 2023 and orders totaled about 22.7 million last year.