Swedish investor Kinnevik has announced that it is selling its remaining 6.6% of shares in German e-commerce company Rocket Internet. This sudden announcement led to a fall in share prices of Rocket Internet by almost 4%. A few months ago, Kinnevik had sold half of the 13% stake it had in the company, causing its share prices to drastically fall.
The Swedish company said it was selling its remaining stake in Rocket Internet through an accelerated book building process to institutional investors where it was offering around 10.9 million shares in the German company.
Kinnevik was one of the first investors in Rocket and held the biggest stake next to the founders of the company- Oliver, Marc and Alexander Samwer. The two companies clashed last year over some valuations of joint investments. Additionally, they have both also become competitors as they are looking for new startups to invest in.
Last year, two of Kinnevik’s representatives– Lorenzo Grabau and Erik Mitteregger– stepped down from Rocket’s supervisory board. Both sides had said that there was a difference in opinion over how Rocket had moved from being an incubator for internet-based startups to becoming a general investment firm that followed a model similar to Kinnevik’s.
The departure of Kinnevik from the company altogether now will affect its credibility. Rocket’s shares have also steadfastly performed badly since being listed in October 2014 and has constantly been questioned about the continuous losses at the companies it invests in.
Recently however, Rocket’s share price has started recovering after press reports indicated that two of its portfolio companies: HelloFresh and Delivery Hero are planning initial public offerings.
Earlier this week, Delivery Hero announced plans for a $500 million initial public offering this year in Frankfurt, Germany. This deal will be the first IPO for a startup backed by Rocket since Zalando SE was listed in 2014.
