Customers of Aussie Broadband that took up the opportunity to plough up to AU$10,000 into the company could have doubled their money at one stage on Friday.
After selling 40 million shares at AU$1 each during its initial public offering (IPO), of which 10 million were available to customers, the company traded at between AU$1.74 and AU$2.22 during the day. Over 7.8 million shares changed hands during the day.
The oversubscribed IPO process gave the company an enterprise value of AU$190 million, with the current shareholders having their percentage stake reduced to around 80% of the company.
In its prospectus, the company said it did not intend to pay dividends to shareholders, and would instead be investing the money back into the business. Of the money raised, between AU$20 million to AU$26.5 million would be used to build out Aussie Broadband’s own fibre optic backhaul network, AU$7 million to AU$10 million would be set aside for working capital, and around AU$3 million to AU$3.5 million would be used on costs associated with the IPO.
“Our own fibre in the ground goes to the heart of our approach to the business. It means that we can control quality and improve our customer experience even more, and it means we can start to drive down ourbackhaul costs,” Aussie Broadband managing director Phil Britt said.
“We’ve come a long way from 27,000 customers in June 2017. Last month we connected our 300,000th customer — a 100,000 net gain in just over 5 months.”
In fiscal terms, Aussie Broadband has been able to grow its revenue from AU$49.3 million in FY18 to AU$190.5 million in FY20, and it has forecast a record AU$338 million in the coming year.
Statutory earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) was reported as AU$3 million for the 2020 fiscal year, and forecast to be AU$10.8 million for 2021.
