SINGAPORE – Commodities trader Olam International is focused on completing the IPO of its food ingredients unit in the second quarter but it is also tracking market movements to see the potential impact on the timing, executives said on Monday.
Singapore-based Olam in August announced plans for Olam Food Ingredients (OFI) to pursue a primary listing in London and a secondary listing in Singapore in the first half of 2022.
Sources familiar with the matter said at that time Olam was considering raising about 2 billion pounds ($2.7 billion) through the London listing, which would make it one of the biggest London IPOs in years.
“We are controlling everything that we can control in making sure that we can complete the IPO and the concurrent demerger of OFI from the Olam group in the second quarter of this year,” Olam co-founder and group CEO Sunny Verghese said in a results call on Monday.
Global markets have fallen sharply following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as investors scramble for the safety of gold and the protection of inflation hedges. Market jitters are threatening Europe’s IPO launch season.
Olam, one of the world’s biggest agricultural commodity traders, has been rehauling its businesses as it seeks to simplify its complex portfolio and boost valuations.
The company has appointed a raft of global and regional banks to work on OFI’s IPO.
Olam’s executives did not specify if the group was looking to postpone its IPO but reiterated that the focus was on creating a strong business.
“The markets will be markets. We will figure out the balance. Obviously, right now, nobody really knows,” A. Shekhar, OFI’s CEO said, responding to a question on whether war in Europe could hurt risk appetite and impact OFI’s IPO.
“And we’ll see how that evolves. What I want to make clear is that we will be prepared, and then we will decide the right time,” he said.
($1 = 0.7486 pounds)
(Reporting by Aradhana Aravindan; Writing by Anshuman Daga; Editing by Stephen Coates)
