Company and key investors are offering more than 34 million shares
Klarna shares are expected to be available at about $35 each. Photo: Getty
Klarna Group is telling investors it expects to price its initial public offering of as much as $1.27bn (€1.08bn) above its marketing range, according to people familiar with the matter.
The financial technology and consumer lending firm and some of its investors are offering 34.3 million shares at $35 to $37 a share. The IPO is multiple times oversubscribed, the sources said, asking not to be identified as the information is not public.
Klarna’s IPO stopped taking orders from institutional investors on Monday, the people said.
No final decisions have been made and details such as the price and number of shares offered could still change, the sources said. A Klarna representative declined to comment.
The IPO comes about 20 years after the company was founded in Sweden
The guidance comes as the US IPO market is poised to continue a hot streak of recent activity into the coming months. First-time share sales have already raised $24.4bn this year, excluding closed-end funds and other financial vehicles, comfortably ahead of the $20.4bn raised in the same period last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Klarna is offering 5.6 million shares in the IPO, and selling holders – including executives, co-founder Victor Jacobsson, entities related to Sequoia Capital and Danish billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen’s Heartland A/S – are offering 28.8 million shares, the filing shows.
The IPO comes about 20 years after the company was founded in Sweden. It started operations in the US in 2019. Klarna now has 111 million active customers for its so-called buy now, pay later and other financial products, according to a filing earlier with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Klarna’s business generated $112bn of gross merchandise value in the 12 months ended June 30.
The offering is being led by Goldman Sachs Group Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley and 11 other firms working on the deal. Klarna is expected to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol KLAR.
source