http://www.thealarmclock.com/euro/archives/2006/01/apax_homerun_on_qcells_ipo.html
January 31, 2006
Apax homerun on Q-Cells IPO
Apax Partners says to Index Ventures, my homerun is bigger than yours. Not to be outdone by Index Ventures and its Skype exit, Apax Partners is putting it out to the press that its IPO of Q-Cells, a solar cell manufacturer, gave it a bigger return than the one Skype delivered on a trade sale to eBay.
Apax, which does buyout and late stage venture investing, told The Independent newspaper in the UK that it made a 27X multiple after holding the investment for a mere 22 months.
Apax's return, Euro 280M (£190M) after costs and net of its original investment, is the largest single capital gain made by a European venture capital firm since the dot.com boom. It beats the $300m (£170M) return Index Ventures made on the $4.1bn sale of Skype to eBay in September.
The article tells us a couple of things.
1) The German IPO market is recovering from its post-bubble near-death experience. (Last year 14 IPOs took place in
2) The amount that Index Ventures made selling its Skype share was $300M.
3) And that solar energy stocks are hot in
Solar energy shares are valued highly indeed, although it should be noted that the best post-IPO performance in
These kinds of exits for VCs are going to give them a bit more confidence to invest, even in earlier stage ventures. It is worth noting that Interhyp was backed by Hamburg-based Earlybird Ventures which first invested in 1999, with 3i joining in a later round. We hear that the IPO gave 3i Group a 9X return so far, and it still has some stock it can sell at the higher post-IPO price.