Auto1 announces IPO for the first quarter

Auto1 wants to grow further: The start-up plans to go public on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in the first quarter. Its last valuation was 3.5 billion euros. This makes it one of the most valuable German start-ups.

The first major IPO of the year is on the horizon: Auto1 Group plans to go public on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange before the end of the first quarter. The company expects proceeds of one billion euros. New shares are to be created through a capital increase, and some investors are also said to want to sell their shares. Auto1 buys up old vehicles to resell them to car dealers. In recent years, however, private customers have also become the focus of the company, who can buy used vehicles via the Autohero platform, for example, or sell them via WirkaufendeinAuto. Just last summer, Auto1 raised €255 million from a U.S. hedge fund to move further into the retail customer business.

In December last year, the company was valued at 3.5 billion euros. Auto1 is believed to be seeking five billion euros as a valuation for its IPO. 750 million euros of the IPO is to be invested by Auto1 in the further growth of the Autohero platform. The rest of the money will be used to repay a convertible bond.

30 percent of the company belongs to the two founders Christian Bertermann and Hakan Koç. They have been able to raise around 1.2 billion euros in 22 financing rounds since the company was founded in 2012. Koç retired from operations last year and moved to the supervisory board, while Bertermann is part of the two-member board with Markus Boser.

Boser presented figures on the company last year that showed Auto1 posted a profit of 16 million in the third quarter of 2020 and sold 120,000 cars.