off-the-wire

UPDATE 3-J&J's Kenvue prices upsized IPO at upper end of range to raise $3.8 bln

Kitco Media
By Reuters
Published:
Updated:
Reuters
(Recasts first paragraph to change sourcing; adds details from press release throughout) By Echo Wang NEW YORK, May 3 (Reuters) - Johnson & Johnson has priced the initial public offering of its consumer-health business, Kenvue Inc , at the upper end of its target range, to raise $3.8 billion.


The company will list about 172.8 million shares at $22 per share, J&J and Kenvue said in a joint statement on Wednesday.


The IPO values Kenvue at about $41 billion.


Kenvue earlier said it planned to sell 151 million shares at a range between $20 and $23 per share.


Kenvue's share sale marks the biggest IPO to result from a corporate carve-out in over two decades.


J&J will control about 91% of Kenvue's shares after the listing, owning slightly more than 1.7 billion shares.


Reuters was first to report that Kenvue's IPO will be priced at $22 per share. While the Kenvue deal is the largest IPO to launch since electric vehicle maker Rivian Automotive Inc listed its shares on Nasdaq in late 2021, deal advisers have warned that equity capital markets may not recover in a meaningful way any time soon.


The IPO market has been largely frozen over the past year as stock-market volatility and economic uncertainty have put off many hopefuls. U.S. IPOs, excluding listings for special-purpose acquisition companies, are down about 22% to a total of just $2.35 billion year-to-date, according to Dealogic.


Kenvue is expected to begin trading on Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker "KVUE." Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America are acting as the lead underwriters for the IPO.
(Reporting by Echo Wang in New York and Juby Babu in Bengaluru; Editing by Anirban Sen, Matthew Lewis, Jamie Freed and Leslie Adler)

E.Wang@thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))
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