Pepper Money have ended their first day on the ASX slightly down on their initial IPO offer price.
The non bank hit the market at 12.30pm yesterday afternoon and were initially at $2.62, touching a high of $2.74 before falling to $2.58 by the end of the trading day.
The initial expectation had been that Pepper would open at $2.89, valuing the company at around $1.3 billion. They were previously listed on the ASX, before being taken off after American investment fund KKR bought them in 2017.
Their return to the stock exchange had been highly anticipated, with CEO Mario Rehayem telling media on their launch about the lender’s optimism.
“I would like to welcome our new shareholders to the register. We have been delighted with the support and interest we have received throughout this process from a wide range of institutional and retail investors,” he said.
“We will continue to focus on growing our business and to deliver on our purpose of helping people to succeed by concentrating on underserved customer segments via our multi-channel distribution channel and cascading credit model.”
On announcing the IPO, Rehayem spoke to Australian Broker about how vital brokers had been to their success over the last 21 years, which has seen Pepper established as one of the best known names in Australian lending.
“We owe a lot of our growth and success not only to our staff, but also to our brokers and introducers,” he said. “They have been an exceptional business partner and have allowed us to continue to innovate, continue to grow and have represented our brand in a way that we are extremely proud of.”
“For us, it’s just another milestone and a part of our new chapter coming into a publicly listed environment. We have experience in this area previously, but for us, it’s about continuing our ability to help people succeed, continuing to roll out new innovative products onto our extensive distribution platforms through mortgage brokers and introducers and really organically growing this business the way that we have in the past.”
