Aug 18 (Reuters) – Lyntris and some of its existing stockholders raised $297.5 million in a downsized U.S. IPO after pricing below the marketed range and offering fewer shares, the defense contractor said on Tuesday, as the summer listing market draws to a close.
The Falls Church, Virginia-based company priced its initial public offering of 17 million shares at $17.50 per share, compared with the marketed range of $19 to $22.
The company and its shareholders had initially proposed to offer 24 million shares in the IPO, aiming to raise as much as $528 million.
Lyntris sold about 5.7 million shares in the offering, more than its earlier proposal of about 4.9 million shares, while its existing shareholders reduced their offering by more than 7.8 million shares.
The listing caps off a robust summer window for the IPO market, when easing volatility and stronger market conditions encouraged companies to move ahead with their plans to go public.
Lyntris is the latest in the wave of defense companies that have rushed to list their shares in New York since April as boardrooms look to seize the opportunity created by the Middle East war.
“(Defense) companies need to demonstrate that they can achieve sustainable growth, driven by mission-critical products. Investors heavily discount revenue from one-off programs,” said Matt Kennedy, senior strategist at Renaissance Capital, a provider of IPO-focused research and ETFs.
Dallas, Texas-based private equity firm Trive Capital combined portfolio companies Accelint and Vitesse in May to form Lyntris.
Lyntris makes battlefield sensors and software for the U.S. and its allies. It was involved in more than 200 active defense programs as of December 31, with no individual program accounting for over 7% of the company’s revenue, it said.
Its backlog more than doubled to $923.9 million as of June 30 from a year earlier.
Evercore ISI, Citigroup and Guggenheim Securities were lead book-running managers. Lyntris will begin trading on the NYSE under the symbol “LYNX” on Wednesday.
(Reporting by Arasu Kannagi Basil and Sathvi G Bhat in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and Janane Venkatraman)
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