Applied Nutrition eyes £400m fundraise as it prepares for London listing

Applied Nutrition hopes to raise £400million from a looming initial public offering of the British sports nutrition group’s shares on the London Stock Exchange.

The group, based in Knowsley, Liverpool, said on Wednesday it would offer up to 137,408,477 shares at a price range of 136p to 160p each, implying a value of £340million to £400million.

JD Sports-backed Applied Nutrition’s IPO will receive £25million worth of support from ‘four prominent and highly successful North West entrepreneurs’, including Mohsin Issa, who stepped down as chief executive of Asda last month.

And retail investors are set to be given an opportunity to participate for a minimum application size of £250, via platforms AJ Bell, Hargreaves Lansdown and Interactive Investor.

Shares are expected to be admitted to the London Stock Exchange later this month and the latest investors can apply to the platforms to participate is 10am on 23 October. 

Though the maximum fundraising target falls short of the £500million suggested when the IPO was announced earlier this month, it is set to mark a windfall for 55 per cent shareholder, founder and chief executive Thomas Ryder.

He set up Applied Nutrition in 2014 and has developed it into a company with more than 200 staff selling goods from powders and herbal tablets to isotonic gels in more than 80 countries.

The firm is backed by JD Sports – which bought a 32 per cent stake from Ryder, 40, in 2021 – and is the official nutrition partner of football clubs Fulham and Glasgow Rangers.

Revenues topped £86m in the 12 months to the end of July – up from £35million in 2022 and £61million in 2023 – while profits hit £26million.

The IPO comes at an important time for London stock markets, which have grappled with a dearth of listing activity, as well as a number of UK-listed firms being bought out or defecting to markets abroad.

Analysts at Peel Hunt said: ‘Applied Nutrition has seen meteoric growth over the past three years, taking revenue from £22million in FY21 to £86million in FY24.

‘EBITDA margins have held firm at [approximately] 30 per cent more than double those of competitors.

‘Applied Nutrition runs an extremely lean operation, with marketing costs, distribution costs, and other admin costs all significantly below peers, due to its sales model focused on third-party distributors.

‘Maintaining margins assumes that the business is fully invested for growth and implies no significant shift in sales mix towards D2C, areas that we believe potential investors should explore.’

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