Greeting cards company Moonpig eyes 1 billion pound London listing

LONDON (Reuters) - Online greetings card company Moonpig is planning a London stock market listing that could value the private equity-backed firm at more than one billion pounds ($1.36 billion), sources familiar with the plans said on Tuesday.

The company, which operates in Britain as Moonpig and in the Netherlands as Greetz, is targeting net debt of two times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), it said in a statement.

Moonpig, which is 41% owned by Exponent Private Equity Partners III, is expected to target a free float of at least 25% and has lined up several big name investment banks to handle its share offering, including Citi, JP Morgan, HSBC, Numis and Jefferies.

The company generated revenues of 173 million pounds in the year to April 2020 and of 156 million pounds in the half-year to October 2020, the company said.

"As the leaders of the accelerating shift to online, now is the perfect time for us to bring the company to the public market," said Moonpig CEO Nickyl Raithatha.

Moonpig, specialist footwear retailer Dr. Martens and infrastructure fund Foresight have all announced listing plans this week, to take advantage of increased interest in UK equities.

($1 = 0.7373 pounds)

(Reporting by Carolyn Cohn, editing by Sinead Cruise)