Aston Martin is getting ready to hire Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan to help plan for an initial public offering in London that could value the famed car manufacturer at as much as £5 billion (about $7.1 billion), according to Reuters. Previous reports had emerged in December that the company had hired Lazard to prepare it for an exit of some sort.
Investindustrial has backed Aston Martin for more than five years, reportedly agreeing to buy a 37.5% stake for £150 million in 2012, with plans to invest another £500 million in the company over the coming half-decade. Combined, Investindustrial and Kuwaiti backer Investment Dar are said to own more than 90% of the British automaker.
If the offering goes down during 2018, it would likely be one of the year's largest for a PE-backed company located in the US or Europe. That title currently goes to the Florida-based ADT, which raised about $1.6 billion and established an initial market cap of $10.6 billion in a January offering. Apollo Global Management, which had owned ADT for less than two years, reportedly recorded $2.4 billion in profits on the deal.
Here's a look at some other companies that conducted major PE-backed IPOs so far this year, along with their current market caps:
Plenty of other possible big-money offerings are in the pipeline. TPG and portfolio company GreenSky are considering an IPO that could value the Atlanta-based fintech provider at up to $5 billion, per reports from earlier this month. Houston's BMC Software, meanwhile, is reportedly mulling an offering that could value company at $10 billion or more. Bain Capital and Golden Gate Capital bought the SaaS provider in a $6.9 billion deal in 2013.
Check out more of our IPO coverage.