Luz Saúde suspends IPO over adverse market conditions

Portugal’s private healthcare group Luz Saúde has shelved plans for an Initial Public Offer (IPO) because of “adverse market conditions”.

The company, which is controlled by the insurer Fidelidade, whose main shareholder is the Chinese conglomerate Fosun, has a string of private hospitals, clinics and senior residences throughout the country.

The company says in a communiqué that it will continue to monitor market conditions and the evolution of favourable evaluations in the health sector and admits to “considering the possibility of continuing the IPO process at a later date when market conditions are favourable enough to warrant a higher valuation of the company. 

So, the company has decided not to begin an investor sound-out roadshow and bookbuilding  process as part of the planned IPO floatation on Lisbon’s Euronext Lisbon stock market.

The company had been preparing for the IPO since 2023. It had been listed on the stock market until 2018 when it left. 

According to the online news source ECO, Fidelidade had planned to issue new shares aimed at national and international institutional investors in a bid to raise €100 million.

The deadline for the period to accept investor offers was to have been on April 30, a date when depending on uptake, the company would decide to advance or put the IPO on ice. If investor interest had been sufficient it had set May 3 to advance.

But according to Luz Saúde on Tuesday, Fidelidade, its main shareholder, decided to cancel the IPO before the end of March citing “adverse market conditions” which may or may not mean that investor interest was lukewarm at the value the company believed it was worth.

The company states: “Over recent months we got very consistent and encouraging feedback from investors as to its strong operational and financial track record, however, after the company had announced plans to return to the stock market on April 10, the global environment deteriorated and volatility increased “resulting in a sub-optimal window” for pursuing the IPO.