Toast Inc. boosts IPO price to $34-$36/share, valuing restaurant-software firm at some $18B
- Toast Inc. (TOST) boosted the estimated share price Monday on its IPO, increasing the restaurant software firm expected non-diluted valuation to as much as about $18.1B.
- Toast wrote in a revised S-1 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that the company now expects its initial public offering to price at $34-$36/share.
- That’s up from the $30 to $33 a share that the company projected when it last filed IPO paperwork one week ago.
- The higher estimated price presumably reflects strong investor demand for the shares for Toast, which plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “TOST.”
- However, Toast reiterated its earlier plans to sell some 27.1M Class A shares through the IPO, while continuing to offer underwriters the option to buy some 3.3M additional Class A shares for overallotments.
- The company also has Class B stock for insiders, with each share carrying 10 votes vs. one vote for Class A shares. All in, TOST expects to have some 499.3M Class A and B shares following the IPO, or about 502.6M if underwriters full execute their overallotment options.
- Assuming both share classes carry the same price, that will value the firm at about $17B to $18.1B on a non-diluted basis, depending on where the stock prices within its expected range and how many overallotment shares underwriters buy. The non-diluted valuation also excludes the impact of executive stock options, restricted stock units and the like.
- Market watchers expect Toast’s IPO to price as early as Tuesday, with trading starting one day later.
- Ten-year-old Toast makes a full suite of smartphone- and cloud-based apps to help eateries take online orders, do marketing, run customer-loyalty programs and handle other business functions.
- The company’s pre-IPO backers include Bessemer Venture Partners, TCV, Technology Investment Dining Group, LLC, Tiger Capital, T. Rowe Price and other firms.
Seeking Alpha contributor Noah Wilson recently issued a bullish thesis for TOST, arguing that the company’s IPO “looks like a steal.”