Virgin Australia Staged to Raise $442.8 Million in IPO, Report Says

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Virgin Australia will have an enterprise value of A$3.6 billion with a net value of A$3.6 billion.

Virgin Australia has staged a zero-to-hero moment, giving a financial comeback in recent years, going from a collapse during the pandemic to one of the most closely watched initial public offerings (IPOs) of 2025. Bain Capital-owned Virgin Australia planned to go public with an IPO of A$685 million ($442.78 million).

According to it, Bain will sell around 30% of the airline for a fixed price of A$2.90 per share.

Bain refused to discuss the plan.

The private equity company would offer 236.2 million shares in the IPO to value the company at A$2.32 billion on a fully diluted basis.

After entering voluntary administration in April 2020 with debts of around $7 billion, the airline company was bought by Bain Capital for A$700 million and reorganized under then-CEO Jayne Hrdlicka. The strategy that helped turn the company upside-down centered around cost reduction, operational efficiency, and repositioning in the mid-market segment. The efforts helped them deliver their first profit in over 10 years, with $129 million in net earnings in FY2023.

The positive momentum continued into the financial year 2024 (FY2024) when the company reported an income of $5.4 billion.

According to the term sheet, Bain will lose a portion of its ownership from around 70% to 39.4% after the sale, while Qatar Airways will retain a 23% stake.

According to a bookrunner’s letter received on Wednesday, investors had submitted indicative bids that would cover the deal’s size before book building started.

Virgin will have an enterprise value (a company’s total value, considering equity and debt obligations) of A$3.6 billion with a net value of A$3.6 billion.

This initial public offering was one of the most watched deals in Australia in recent years as it is heavily reliant on Australia’s consumer market.

Virgin has temporarily stopped flying internationally as it wants to put its full attention on domestic travel, but it has scheduled to start flying long-haul flights again through its Qatar partnership.

A report published by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) states that Virgin has a domestic market share of 34.4%, which is less than its main rival, Qantas (which has a share of 37.7% as of March).

The deal will take the first place of “the largest IPO in Australia” this year after DigiCo Infrastructure REIT secured A$2 billion in December.

Since its launch, DigiCo’s shares have been losing their strength and reduced by almost 30%.

The term sheet stated that Virgin’s shares would begin trading on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) on June 24 and that institutional book-building would close on Thursday.

The front-end book-building procedure is used to conduct this IPO, where investor place their bids before Australian regulators examine and approve the prospectus.

Virgin hired investment banks after its IPO, which was on the cards for more than two years, kept getting delayed due to the erratic global financial markets in 2023.

Virgin fell to the ground in 2020 due to the severe COVID-19 restrictions that damaged the global airline industry, where flights got halted and people stayed at home.

There is no set date for the initial public offering (IPO), but sources claim that Bain Capital has cleared the listing one month before its June 30 balance date. Additionally, it has promised not to sell any shares until after the results of December.

The benchmark S&P/ASX200 index for Australia has increased by 3.77% so far in 2025.

Virgin Australia came in sixth place, Qantas came in second, and Air New Zealand finished first on the list of the World’s Safest Airlines for 2025 with a record of no incidents or crashes.