Investors full of love for Teamviewer

Göppingen-based Teamviewer was founded back in 2005 as a local provider of tools for remote computer access. It's expanded ever since and is now active in a total of 180 nations around the globe, with remote desktop access and online meeting modules being core ingredients of the software package.

The firm employs some 800 people in Europe, the US and Asia.

Teamviewer logs over 20 million support sessions daily on its platform, with its software installed on at least 340 million devices worldwide.

The company is often described as a hidden champion, although it has powerful, already listed competitors such as Zoom Video Communications, Okta and Slack Technologies. The latter celebrated its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in June of this year, boasting a valuation of over 50 times its revenues.

Hungry investors

Teamviewer priced its initial public offering at 26.25 per share, thus valuing the firm at €5.25 billion ($5.8 billion). This made it the biggest stock market listing across Europe in 2019.

Underwriters in Germany noted that Teamviewer shares are "multiple times oversubscribed," indicating investors' appetite for the biggest tech IPO in the country since Infineon (formerly belonging to Siemens) made its market debut back in the year 2000.

After that, the dot-com bubble burst and there have been few sizeable tech IPOs in Europe's powerhouse ever since; none of them raised more than €1 billion.

What sets Teamviewer apart from many other tech candidates wanting to get listed is that the company is already profitable, with its subscription-based policy helping to boost revenues.

At the moment, the company has around 368,000 subscribers — that's twice as many as in late June of last year. The number of subscribers has risen steadily despite a fully functional freeware version for private users which the firm intends to keep offering after Wednesday's IPO.

More visibility

On its website, Teamviewer offers a strikingly convincing reason for wanting to get listed. "We want to leave behind the hidden part in our 'hidden champion' description and turn into a more visible player on the global market as a listed company," the firm explains.

Underwriters had said Tuesday that orders below €26.50 per share "risked missing the transaction." The note to investors came after initial pricing guidance of €25.50 to €26.50 apiece, with the free float expected to range from 30% to 42% depending on the size of the total offer.

Wednesday is Teamviewer's first trading day in Frankfurt, but it's already clear who the biggest winner is — it's private equity firm Permira which acquired Teamviewer in 2014 for as little as €870 million.

Staying loyal

Permira has indicated that it wants to remain a major shareholder after the IPO. Reuters quoted Teamviewer as saying that the company's addressable market was currently worth €10 billion and would "grow to €30 billion in 2023 as companies invest in digitally controlling their production machines and the trend of employees working from home intensifies."

Given that, Teamviewer seems unfazed by current recession fears in Germany, hoping for a bright and financially sound future.

"We're highly profitable and have a decent cash flow," said Teamviewer CEO Oliver Steil. "This should put us in a position to finance future growth but also debt reduction out of our own pocket."