Card Factory shares down 10% one day after IPO

Charterhouse-backed Card Factory priced its IPO at 225 pence per share – the bottom of the initial range – on 15 May, giving the company a market cap of £766.6m.

Card Factory will list on London's main market on 20 May. But the company saw its share price slide by more than 10% on the first day of conditional trading, with shares changing hands at 200 pence apiece today (Friday 16 May).

The sluggish debut adds to the signs of declining investor appetite following the flurry of private equity-backed IPOs on the London Stock Exchange in recent weeks. Shares in Just-Eat, the VC-backed online food delivery service, dropped 10p below their IPO price less than a week after the company went public in early April. Just-Eat shares were trading at 223.75 pence apiece at the time of writing, against a 260 pence float price.

Charterhouse backed the management buyout of Card Factory for an estimated £350m in April 2010. The GP reportedly stands to make roughly 4x its money following the IPO.

Founded in 1997 and based in Wakefield, the retailer designs and supplies greetings cards, gifts, plush items, novelties and gift wrap across the UK with a focus on affordable greetings cards; the majority of its cards are sold for less than £1.

Card Factory operates 700 stores and reported revenues of £326.9m for the year ending January 2014, representing a 9% uptick on last year's figures. It generated underlying EBITDA of £80.4m and employs 6,500 people throughout the UK.

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• Topics
• Exits
• Consumer
• UK / Ireland
• Charterhouse Capital Partners
• IPO