Inside Booktopia’s Big Day at the ASX

Booktopia proudly rang the bell at the Australian Stock Exchange as it completed its IPO today. Its IPO includes 18.8 million ordinary shares in Boktopia Group Limited, to raise approximately $43.1 million. The company’s shares first traded at $2.86, a 24 percent premium to the $2.30 issue price and reached an intra-day high of $2.90.

Under the terms of the prospectus, shared on November 1st, Booktopia sold 10.9 million new shares in the company and 7.9 million existing shares at $2.30 per share, giving the company a market capitalisation at the Offer Price of $315.8 million.

Booktopia launched in 2004 in Sydney, by founders Tony Nash, Simon Nash and Steven Traurig.

In FY20, Australians spent $2.5 billion on books, including eBooks – 36 percent of those were bought online. Booktopia currently has a six percent market share of Australian book sales.

“Booktopia Group was started on a marketing budget of just $10 per day in 2004. It took three days to sell the first book and now we sell, on average, one item every 4.7 seconds,” shared Tony Nash, the CEO and Co-Founder of Booktopia.

“Twelve years ago we operated from 500 square metres on Sydney’s Lower North Shore. Now we are headquartered in 14,000 square metres in Lidcombe, Western Sydney with over 600,000 items in stock across approximately 145,000 titles ready-to-ship to customers.”

As a result of the pandemic, online accounted for almost 43 percent of consumer book sales in FY20 – this is an increase from 32 percent in 2015.

According to the Booktopia prospectus, in FY201, online book sale penetration is forecast to be a 46.8 percent increase of 4.2 basis points over 2020. This is a reflection of the pandemic and its changes in customer behaviour.

Co-Founders Tony Nash and Steve Traurig
source: Booktopia

Today, the team at Booktopia rang the bell at the ASX. “We would like to welcome all the new shareholders who are now part of the Booktopia journey,” Nash said. “We have a strong business with a clear strategy to retain our strong market position in Australia’s fast-growing online book market.”

Key Offer Stats:

Offer Price per Share – $2.30
Total proceeds of the Offer – $43.1 million
Total proceeds from the issue of New Shares under the Offer – $25.0 million
Total proceeds from the sale of existing Shares under the Offer – $18.1 million
Number of New Shares available under the Offer – 10.9 million
Number of existing Shares to be sold under the Offer – 7.9 million
Total number of Shares on issue at Completion – 137.3 million
Market Capitalisation at the Offer Price 1 – $315.8 million

“On behalf the Board I would like to thank all those who made the listing possible, including our pre-IPO investors, advisors, the ASX and, of course, our incredible Booktopia team who have worked so hard for so many years to build a great Australian business,” Nash concluded.

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