By Echo Wang
NEW YORK (Reuters) -Johnson & Johnson on Wednesday priced the initial public offering (IPO) of its consumer-health business Kenvue Inc at the upper end of its target range to raise $3.66 billion, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Kenvue defied volatile market conditions to price about 166 million shares at $22 per share, the sources said, adding that the size of the deal was upsized by about 10%.
The sources requested anonymity as the discussions are confidential. The IPO values Kenvue at about $41 billion.
Kenvue had earlier said it planned to sell 151 million shares at a range of between $20 and $23 per share.
J&J did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Kenvue’s share sale marks the biggest IPO to result from a corporate carve-out in over two decades.
J&J will control over 90% of the company’s shares after the listing, according to an earlier filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
While the Kenvue deal is the largest IPO to launch since electric vehicle maker Rivian Automotive Inc listed its shares on Nasdaq in late 2021, deal advisers have warned that equity capital markets may not recover in a meaningful way any time soon.
The IPO market has been largely frozen over the past year as stock-market volatility and economic uncertainty have put off many hopefuls.
U.S. IPOs, excluding listings for special-purpose acquisition companies, are down about 22% to a total of just $2.35 billion year-to-date, according to Dealogic.
(Reporting by Echo Wang in New York; Editing by Anirban Sen, Matthew Lewis and Jamie Freed)
