Insurance marketplace Accelerant, backers raise $724 million in US IPO

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(Reuters) -Accelerant and some of its existing shareholders raised $723.69 million in an initial public offering (IPO) in the U.S., the specialty insurance marketplace said on Wednesday.

The company, together with backers including Todd Boehly’s Eldridge, Altamont Capital and Barings, sold 34.46 million shares at $21 each, after earlier targeting 28.9 million shares in a price range of $18 to $20.

A string of strong U.S. market debuts in recent weeks, coupled with rebounding equities, has encouraged many companies to press ahead with their stock market listings.

Consumer intelligence company NIQ Global and surgery medtech firm Carlsmed went public in New York on Wednesday, while textbook publisher McGraw Hill is set to debut on Thursday alongside Accelerant.

Founded in 2018 by a group of industry veterans, Accelerant operates as an insurance marketplace connecting niche sellers with institutional investors, using data to make the process faster, cheaper and smarter.

The company was valued at $2.4 billion in a 2023 funding round.

Accelerant’s risk exchange placed $3.5 billion of exchange-written premium in the trailing 12 months ended March 31, a 73% surge from a year earlier.

Private equity firm Altamont Capital will retain majority voting control of Accelerant after the offering, for which Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs acted as lead active bookrunners.

Accelerant, which tapped more than 10 Wall Street banks for the IPO, will begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “ARX”.

The company plans to use the proceeds to redeem some convertible preference shares and pay management fees to its majority investor, Altamont.

(Reporting by Arasu Kannagi Basil and Abu Sultan in Bengaluru; Editing by Sumana Nandy)