Dr Martens in the pink as value hits £4.9bn, could it join the FTSE 100?

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Feb 8, 2021

Dr Martens’ recent IPO valued the British bootmaker at £3.7 billion but the firm’s value has already risen to £4.9 billion as the shares have been popular purchases since the end of January, despite a rather sluggish UK stock market overall.

Permira bought the business for ‘only’ £300 million in 2014 and sold part of its stake in the IPO. The biggest new shareholders now include GIC Private (Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund), which holds a stake of a little more than 4% in the company, worth £206 million as of Friday's closing price.

The largest stake among those who bought in at the IPO is held by BlackRock, the US-based money manager, which now has shares adding up to 6.8% of the company, holding them through a variety of different funds.

The Times quoted financial data company Refinitiv saying that America’s Fidelity Management & Research and UK-based Janus Henderson and Jupiter, hold 3.25%, 2.7% and 2.03% each respectively.

It may not seem important who invests in a listed company, but attracting the interest of such heavyweight names is a vote of confidence post-Brexit, not only in the company itself, but in a business that manufactures some of its products in the UK and exports globally.

It also helps to justify the value that the company attracted at its float, with some analysts having been surprised that its shares valued it at as much as £3.7 billion at the time.

Given that its current valuation makes it worth more than some constituents of the blue-chip FTSE 100 share index (such as Morrisons supermarkets and retail property giants Landsec and British Land), it also means the company could potentially qualify to join the FTSE 100 when the next review of its members is due. That would make its shares even more in demand as many funds that track the index would be forced to buy them.