Shares in French tech champion OVHcloud gain 6% in Paris debut

Published On : 10/15/2021

PARIS (Reuters) -Shares in French cloud computing company OVHcloud climbed around 6% on their first day of trading on Friday, after a brief wobble, in one of Paris’ biggest new listings this year.

The shares were up at around 19.70 euros at 0739 GMT, after dipping just below the offer price in early trading.

OVHcloud had on Thursday set its IPO price at 18.5 euros per share, the low end of its guidance range, implying a market value of around 3.5 billion euros ($4.1 billion).

It’s a great day for French and European tech sovereignty,” said French technology minister Cedric O in a launch ceremony. “We want to make champions here.”

Some politicians hope that OVHcloud – the biggest European-based cloud services provider – could offer an alternative to U.S. giants Amazon Web Services, Microsoft’s Azure and Google Cloud, which dominate the market.

However, the company has so far lacked the scale and financial clout to dent their market shares.

OVHcloud is the second-biggest listing on Euronext Paris this year, following Antin Infrastructure Partners’ September debut, which brought it a market value of around 4.1 billion euros.

It joins a long list of European companies going public this year, but a skittish market has seen some faltering starts, with French healthcare property group Icade Santé and Swiss Chronext delaying their debuts.

($1 = 0.8611 euros)

(Reporting by Sarah Morland and Gwenaelle BarzicEditing by Richard Lough and Mark Potter)

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