It’s been a long time coming, as the 1960s song goes. That definitely fits the anticipation building up before Ingram Micro Inc.’s planned initial public offering.
The electronics and technology distribution colossus said in September 2022 it had told the Securities and Exchange Commission it was planning a public listing.
That press release back then was brief—two paragraphs—and there hasn’t been a lot of news coming from the Irvine-based company since then.
That reticence hasn’t stopped a minor cottage industry of speculation from popping up.
Bloomberg News said in a May 15 headline that Ingram Micro was “ready to move on plan for $1 billion-plus IPO.”
Ingram Micro in 2021 was bought by Platinum Equity for $7.2 billion. Platinum Equity of Los Angeles could seek a $10 billion valuation for Ingram Micro, according to Bloomberg, quoting unidentified people familiar with the matter last month.
Two months before that, Bloomberg reported Ingram Micro was working with lenders Goldman Sachs (NYSE; GS) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) on an IPO seeking a valuation of about $8 billion.
The Bloomberg reports were widely quoted in other news media as the speculation increased.
As for the company’s reaction:
“We have no comments on our IPO at this time,” an Ingram Micro spokesperson told the Business Journal on May 20.
Ingram Micro was a public company before going private in 2016.
With $48.1 billion in net sales last year, the company is known as the world’s largest technology distributor.
