Sweden-headquartered oat milk brand Oatly filed on Monday to raise up to $100m in a US initial public offering that would represent an exit for talent manager and entertainment agency Roc Nation.
Oatly’s oat milk is sold across some 60,000 retail outlets and in more than 32,000 coffee shops across more than 20 countries, in addition to its online platform. Its formula is based on research at Lund University.
The company has benefitted from customers seeking non-dairy milk alternatives, in addition to reports of the almond milk production process being extremely harmful to bee populations. It more than doubled revenue to $421m in 2020, though its net loss rose from $35.6m to $60.4m.
The IPO follows a $200m round in July 2020 led by investment manager Blackstone and backed by Roc Nation and Rabo Corporate Investments, a strategic investment vehicle for agriculture-focused financial services firm Rabobank.
Oatly co-founders Rickard and Björn Öste also participated in the July round, as did growth equity firm Orkila Capital and private investors including Oprah Winfrey, Natalie Portman and Howard Schultz.
The company had reportedly raised about $41m from unnamed investors in October 2019, three years after Chinese state-owned conglomerate China Resources, Verlinvest and Strand Equity invested an undisclosed amount. Its backers also include Oyster Bay Venture Capital.
Verlinvest is Oatly’s largest shareholder, the owner of nearly 10.8 million shares, while Blackstone vehicle BXG Redhawk holds 1.46 million and Öste Ventures 976,000 on behalf of Rickard and Björn Öste.
The offering is set to take place on the Nasdaq Global Select Market and the underwriters include Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Securities, Credit Suisse Securities (USA), Barclays Capital, Jefferies, BNP Paribas Securities Corp, BofA Securities and Piper Sandler.
The underwriter list is filled out by RBC Capital Markets, Rabo Securities USA, William Blair & Company, Guggenheim Securities, Truist Securities, China International Capital Corporation Hong Kong Securities, Nordea Bank Abp, Oppenheimer and SEB Securities.
Image courtesy of Oatly AB.
