IPO Yesway: trading in shares of the convenience store chain began

Preliminary trading in Yesway shares, which operates a chain of 449 convenience stores in the U.S., began in the trading system for Freedom clients. Later on April 22, the company's securities will appear on the Nasdaq exchange under the ticker YSWY. To participate, click on the ticker YSWY.

Retailer Yesway has raised $280 mln as a result of its IPO on the Nasdaq exchange. It placed 14 million shares at $20 per paper - this corresponds to the lower boundary of the previously announced range ($20-23). Based on the listing parameters, the value of the entire company can be estimated at $1.21 billion, according to Reuters.

The organizers of Yesway IPO were Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Barclays, BMO Capital Markets, KeyBanc Capital Markets, Guggenheim Securities, Raymond James. They were granted a 30-day option to purchase up to 2.1 million additional shares at the initial public offering price less the underwriter discount.

The company plans to use the proceeds of the deal to redeem preferred stock, and if there are any funds left afterward, to pay down debt, IPO expert Donovan Jones wrote in a blog post on Seeking Alpha.

The Yesway retailer was founded in the United States in 2015 by Brookwood, an investment firm that specializes in buying and managing commercial real estate.

In the first few years Yesway grew mainly through acquisitions, then switched to building its own outlets, according to the IPO prospectus, sent to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the U.S. As a rule, the company chooses not too densely populated places to open them. It now has 449 convenience stores operating under the Yesway and Allsup's brands in nine Midwestern and Southwestern states, according to the company's website. That makes Yesway one of the fastest-growing retailers, according to its own data. The company is on track to open about 130 more new stores in the next five years, the prospectus said.

For 2025, Yesway reported revenue growth of about 6 percent to $2.7 billion and a nearly 2.3-fold increase in net income to $54 million, the prospectus said.

This is not Yesway's first attempt at a public offering. The company had been planning an IPO since 2021, but shelved the venture in late 2022 when economic uncertainty crashed the listing markets, Reuters pointed out.

Yesway is planning an IPO amid stock market volatility related to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, Reuters notes.

"For IPO companies, this uncertainty is a real nightmare, especially given its impact on energy prices and the availability of goods and services to consumers in the U.S. and around the world," Samuel Kerr, global head of equity capital markets at Mergermarket, told the agency.

Jones considers the company's strengths to be its positioning in markets with low competition and its work in the catering segment under the Allsup's brand. Among the risks, the expert names dependence on car owners, volatility of fuel prices, and the spread of electric cars. Most Yesway outlets are combined with gas stations.

Freedom Finance analyst Alem Bektemirov sees competition, dependence on a limited number of suppliers, and legal proceedings as the main risks for Yesway's business. Taking into account the average P/E in the industry (a multiple showing the ratio of share price to earnings per share) at 21.18x and Yesway's net income for 2025 of $54 million, the analyst estimates the company's fair valuation at $1.144 billion or $18.87 per share, which is 5.6% below the retailer's IPO price of $20 per share.

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Freedom clients will be able to get access to Yesway shares before the opening of the main exchange session. Trading will begin in the early pre-market format 2-3 hours before the opening of the US exchanges (from 15:30-16:30 Astana time). To participate, click on ticker YSWY.