Czech arms maker CSG soars on trading debut to hit $35 billion valuation

Adds share price update, analyst comment and details on oversubscription

By Charlie Conchie and Jason Hovet

LONDON/PRAGUE, Jan 23 (Reuters) - Czechoslovak Group's CSG.AS shares rose as much as 32% in their Amsterdam debut on Friday, pushing its market capitalisation to more than 30 billion euros ($35.22 billion) following a record fundraising for a defence company listing.

CSG, seeking to tap into a surge in military spending, sold 30 million new shares and up to 122 million existing shares, including an over-allotment option, in an initial public offering priced at 25 euros each, raising up to 3.8 billion euros.

Michael Strnad, the 33-year-old owner of the company, will net just under 3 billion euros in the deal, including the over-allotment, while the rest of the proceeds will go to the company, CSG said.

The offering for up to 15.2% of the company gave CSG an initial market capitalisation of 25 billion euros ($29.30 billion). The shares closed the day up 31.4% at 32.85 euros, implying a market capitalisation for the company of around 33 billion euros.

TAPPING INTO DEFENCE SECTOR BOOM

Investors are piling money into the sector as European governments pledge to ramp up defence spending following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. European defence stocks have touched record highs this year.

Strnad told Reuters this month that one of the reasons for the listing was to use stock as potential acquisition currency. Recent acquisitions include its $2.2 billion purchase in 2024 of leading U.S. small ammunition maker Kinetic, owner of brands such as Remington.

At current prices, CSG has a larger market capitalisation than Czech utility CEZ CEZP.PR, the country's biggest listed company.

CSG's key customers include Ukraine and it is one of the world's fastest‑growing defence companies, producing large- and small-calibre ammunition, heavy ground equipment and radar.

ORDER BOOKS ATTRACTED SWIFT DEMAND

CSG's is the largest Amsterdam listing since KKR Private Equity Investors raised $5 billion in 2006, according to Dealogic.

Other large European defence groups, such as Franco-German tankmaker KNDS, are also set to list this year.

Order books on the CSG offering were quickly covered on Tuesday, a bookrunner said. Funds managed by Artisan Partners, BlackRock and Al-Rayyan Holdings, a subsidiary of the Qatar Investment Authority, have committed to cornerstone the deal with 300 million euros each.

"There is clearly very strong appetite for defence names, supported by massive backlogs that need to be delivered as fast as possible,” said Andrea Scauri, portfolio manager at investment firm Lemanik.

The CSG offer was more than ten times oversubscribed, according to people familiar with the matter. CSG declined to comment.

Led by Strnad, whose father began trading old Soviet-era military equipment in the 1990s, CSG has built up its order pipeline and said in November that revenue would rise to 7.4–7.6 billion euros this year, from the more than 6.4 billion expected for 2025.

It targets a dividend payout of 30%-40% of net profit, payable from 2027.

(Reporting by Charlie Conchie in London, Jason Hovet, and Michal Aleksandrowicz in Gdansk. Editing by Anousha Sakoui, Louise Heavens and Jane Merriman)

((Charlie.Conchie@thomsonreuters.com))