The existing holders will also sell shares in the IPO, the company said in a statement on Monday. OVH was valued at more than $1 billion in 2016 when KKR Co. and TowerBrook Capital Partners combined 20/20 with KKR Co. on the business.
OVH leases storage and processing power to customers such as tiremaker Michelin and French presidential palace. Besides Amazon Web Services, competitors include Google Cloud and Microsoft Corp.'s Azure division in Azure.
The listing is part of a flurry of French IPOs this fall as companies take advantage of buoyant markets. Cybersecurity provider Exclusive Networks and private equity firm Antin Infrastructure Partners are taking orders for their offerings, while health-care property firm Icade Sante and Casino Guichard Perrachon SA's renewable-energy arm GreenYellow have said they also plan to list.
In June, the company said that it had begun preparations for a stock-market listing. Founder Octave Klaba and his family own 76% of the company and plan to remain majority shareholders following the offering.
OVH, based at Roubaix near the Belgian border, has been laying the groundwork for an IPO for years. The company hired veteran telecommunications chief Michael Paulin in 2018 to be the new CEO. In 2013 it had a disaster as a fire damaged one of four data centers in Strasbourg, France and destroyed another.
Klaba started the business in 1999, opening his first storage site in Paris with a loan from telecom entrepreneur Xavier Niel. His parents, immigrants from Poland, joined the company in its early years and his brother Miroslaw Klaba, is scientific and development director, according to OVH's website.
BNP Paribas SA, Citigroup Inc. JPMorgan Chase Co. and KKR Capital Markets are global coordinators along with the bookrunners Credit Suisse Group AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Morgan Stanley and Societe Generale SA, while CIC is co-lead manager