A sigh of relief followed Verisure’s early IPO pop as it began trading on the Nasdaq Stockholm last week (8 October). But equity markets remain febrile after US President Donald Trump ratcheted up trade war talk against China.

Verisure ended its first day of trading at EUR 16 a share, 20% above its IPO offer price of EUR 13.25 each. The immediate success of a deal was seen as a remarkable success by a market that had been desperate for it to succeed after a mixed time for European IPOs.

The IPO had a lot riding on it. The listing is Europe’s largest since Porsche’s Frankfurt debut in 2022 and the third largest sponsor-backed IPO in Europe of all time, according to Dealogic.

Success was also vital for its sponsor, Hellman & Friedman (H&F), given it has retained around 46% of the business following a mostly primary-share IPO; it can start disposing of its remaining position once it is free from lock-up in April 2026.

The stake is worth around EUR 7.67bn at Verisure’s closing market capitalisation of EUR 16.5bn on 9 October. H&F acquired the business at a total valuation of EUR 5.1bn in 2015, according to Mergermarket data.

If Verisure can continue its aftermarket run, it will prove that IPOs are an increasingly useful tool for private equity when exiting large-cap holdings and that success stories, like Swedish sponsor EQT’s 2024 Swiss-listing of Galderma, are not rare anomalies.

“The whole market needed it to work,” said a senior client banker. “The deal was well structured, and the trading up is fantastic to see.

“Even in the M&A world we need a decent European IPO market; that option has to be there for sellers and it’s important for other sponsors to see what H&F did and to see the stock trade up like it has.”

Structured to succeed

H&F and Verisure’s management did well to get the deal across the line, an investor and a banker involved in the IPO agreed.

“Hellman had to structure the deal in the way it did, I think, given the exposure left to sell, but it was very diligent; it picked a deep capital market in Sweden, where the company was well known, and set a very narrow range where it still left a little money on the table,” the investor said.

ECM Pulse previously noted that H&F seemed to have structured Verisure’s price range to take buyside feedback into account – and both the investor and banker close to the transaction praised the work undertaken by Lauren Cummings, H&F’s capital markets head, who oversaw the IPO strategy and process.

Most major private equity companies now have a head of capital markets, or equity capital markets, who oversees IPO exits – a sea-change from the days of individual partners having total autonomy over the process of their portfolio company exits.

As mentioned, a key call was Verisure’s listing location – though headquartered in Switzerland, the company was founded in Sweden in 1988. Given Nordic markets are chock-a-block with high quality pension funds keen to back IPOs, Stockholm was a smart choice. The listing effort able to secure a tranche of tentpole cornerstone investors in Alecta Tjänstepension Ömsesidigt, AMF, GIC Private Limited, Swedbank Robur and Tredje AP-fonden.

Sweden has proven to be Europe’s premier market for performance this year, with the three most successful large IPOs in Europe (in terms of day-one aftermarket performance) being the listings of NOBA Bank, Asker Healthcare and Verisure. All made their stock market debut on the Stockholm bourse.

Source: Dealogic, European IPOs Deal Value over USD 500m

“There was a lot of nervousness because of Verisure’s size but Sweden and the Nordics was a safe choice given their depths,” the investor said. “I don’t think you can read this as something that can be replicated everywhere, I don’t think it’s the same dynamic in France or Germany for example.”

London is expected to be the venue for Europe’s next big multi-billion listing – that of HG Capital backed software business Visma.

The Visma listing, should it go ahead, will likely be London’s first USD 1bn-plus listing since the heady days of 2021.

“London has a lot to prove,” said the second banker, while noting regulatory reform had gone some way to making the UK a better listing location for pan-European and domestic businesses.

H&F did not respond to requests for comment on the IPO process.

Tariff fears return

While Verisure’s success had champagne corks popping, Trump took the fizz out of global equities at the end of last week, with the threat of new tariffs on China.

European markets all fell on Friday at the prospect of trade policy once again roiling markets and US indices had their worst day since Liberation Day in April. The S&P 500 fell 2.7% and the Nasdaq by 3.6%.

Breathing life into the TACO trade, both Trump and Vice President JD Vance toned down the hostility in subsequent messages over the weekend, sending futures up again on Monday.

Verisure itself rode the volatility well, trading up to close at EUR 16.17 a share on 10 October, despite wider markets being deep in the red.

“Pan-European IPO stories with little tariff exposure have been getting a remarkably strong hearing from global investors, in Europe and the US,” said the second banker.

But “tariffs and recession” remain the biggest risk to the deal pipeline for the rest of 2025 and through to 2026, another banker told ECM Pulse just before Friday’s drama.

The risk remains high on both fronts.

“Equity markets are almost completely priced to perfection at the moment; people don’t want to buy or sell because they don’t know which way it’s going to go,” said a fourth banker. “That tells you something about the overall confidence in the market.”

No IPO window lasts forever. With tensions between the US and China rumbling again and the direction of the global economy uncertain, the market needs to take IPO wins wherever it can.