Ryan Gould and Amy Or
(Bloomberg) — UL Solutions Inc.’s initial public offering may raise as much as $812 million for its sole shareholder, as the US market for first-time share sales gathers momentum.
The safety testing and inspection company’s owner, ULSE Inc., plans to offer 28 million shares for $26 to $29 each, according to a filing Tuesday. The listing could give the Northbrook-based company a market value of about $5.8 billion, based on the number of shares outstanding in its filings. Its fully diluted valuation could be more than $6 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The company will not receive any of the proceeds of the IPO, which will go to ULSE, a nonprofit arm of the Underwriters Laboratories group, the filings show. Norges Bank Investment Management, Norway’s $1.6 trillion wealth fund, indicated an interest in buying as much as $75 million in shares, according to the filings.
The company joins a growing pipeline of candidates pursuing significant IPOs, after successes last month by social media platform Reddit Inc. and semiconductor connectivity company Astera Labs Inc. Digital marketing software firm Ibotta Inc., commodities dealer Marex Group Plc and cloud and data security startup Rubrik Inc. are among the companies that have filed for IPOs since then.
UL Solutions is the owner of the iconic UL-in-a-circle certification mark that appears on products around the world, the filings show. The company saw $276 million of net income on $2.7 billion of revenue in 2023, down from $309 million on $2.5 billion of revenue in the previous year. It reported a compound annual revenue growth rate of about 7% over the last 12 years, according to the filings.
The company traces its roots to 1894, when it was founded as part of the nonprofit Underwriters Electrical Bureau, the precursor to UL Research Institutes, which was reorganized into three units in 2021, according to the filings.
UL Solutions, the for-profit arm, has more than 15,000 employees and over 80,000 customers, which includes about 60% of the Fortune 500 and the Global 500, the filings show.
The offering is being led by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. The company plans for its shares to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol ULS.