DNA thesauncing company Oxford Nanopore Technologies Ltd., whose technology is used to identify variants of Covid - 19, looks to raise 300 million pounds $315 million in a London listing on the back of a pandemic boost.
The offering will also include existing shares, the company said in a statement Thursday. The spinout at the University of Oxford supplies the U.K. with tests that use DNA and RNA sequencing to detect various strains of Covid in the U.K. It was also used during the Zika outbreak and Ebola outbreaks.
During its last round of funding in May, the company was worth about 2.5 billion pounds $3.5 billion based on valuation that shareholder IP Group Plc assigns to its 14.5% stake. Oxford Nanopore is opting for a listing on the major segment of LSE, meaning that it will be ineligible for inclusion in standard FTSE benchmarks.
The U.K. company said it will move its genetic analysis applications to Oracle's cloud computing architecture as well, it said.
In June, Oxford Nanopore shareholders approved a limited anti-takeover share structure, according to registration documents filed ahead of the listing. The hostile shares held by Chief Executive Officer Gordon Sanghera will help block hostile takeovers, but won t confer any other voting rights and will expire after three years.
Several big companies that have gone public in London over the past year - online retailer THG Plc, food delivery startup Deliveroo Plc and fintech Wise Plc - have done something similar giving founders a special class of shares with extra voting rights to block an unwanted takeover.
London has been working hard to attract more businesses to its stock exchange, and proposed changes to its listing rules would pave the way for companies with multi-class shares to qualify for a premium quotation, or the top segment of the London Stock Exchange.
The reforms come as the UK attempts to maintain its financial position by virtue of Brexit and become fast acquiring British companies, especially those operating in the tech and life sciences sectors, from fleeing to the U.K. in search of more investors and higher valuations U.S. gene-sequencing giant Illumina Inc. is valued at more than $70 billion.
Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase Co., Barclays Bank Plc, Berenberg, Guggenheim Securities, Numis Securities Ltd and RBC are arranging the offering.