You have to hand it to JAB. Pulling off Europe’s biggest IPO since 2018 on the back of a three-day virtual roadshow is quite something. Even more impressive is the feat of selling shares in coffee shops when most of them are closed… JAB, which manages the wealth of the Reimann family, spent several years buying and rolling up coffee acquisitions, from pods (Keurig Dr Pepper) to filter (Douwe Egberts) to cafés (Peet’s). The spin-off entity comprises the last two, with a split of roughly 80/20 between at-home drinking and cafés. Shares were priced yesterday at the upper end of the proposed range. At €31.50 the newly fledged company is valued at €16.8 billion ($18.6 billion). JAB will remain the company’s largest shareholder… The offer price represents about 11 times last year’s ebitda of about €1.5 billion - €1.6 billion… Coffee habits may ultimately revert to pre-pandemic norms, but the IPO process will surely change for the long term. JDE Peet’s brought in cornerstone investment worth €100 million, unusual for a European deal. If an offering of this size and global reach can be carried out over Zoom video conferences there is little reason to revert to the usual manic, and expensive, dash around a dozen cities in half as many days.?

Lex.