Northzone and Sunstone's Asetek completes IPO

Northzone and Sunstone have both partially exited Asetek as part of the IPO. They committed to selling up to 20% of their holdings to create enough free flow. Northzone sold 231,500 shares while Sunstone parted with 250,700, retaining 1,540,472 and 1,668,255 shares respectively.

The stakes sold at NOK 36 per share, raising $25m of fresh capital and giving the company a market capitalisation of $93m. The IPO of Asetek, which trades on the main list of the Oslo Bors under the symbol ASETEK, was oversubscribed.

Carnegie AS and Arctic Securities ASA acted as joint lead managers and joint bookrunners for Asetek's offering. Crux Kommunikasjon AS acted as IR/communications adviser.

Asetek's listing is the latest in a string of announced private equity-backed IPOs, which include Syntegra Capital's Moleskine on the Milan Stock Exchange and Oaktree and Alchemy's Countrywide on the London Stock Exchange – a trend signalling the possible revival of IPOs as an attractive exit route for private equity.

Previous Investment
Northzone backed the company in a $5m funding round in 2006 and in a $4m round the year after.

Company
Asetek is a provider of liquid cooling solutions for high-end computers, aiming to generate higher performance, lower acoustic noise and power savings.

The company was founded in Bronderslev, Denmark, in 2000 but changed its headquarters to San Jose, California, in 2006. It changed back into a Danish company prior to the IPO. Asetek has further offices in Denmark and China.

The business achieved revenues of $18.7m in 2012, marking a 20% increase on 2011 figures.

People
Gregers Kronborg is a general partner at Northzone. 

Advisers
Company – Carnegie AS (Bookrunner); Arctic Securities ASA (Bookrunner). 

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