(Bloomberg) — Medline Inc. (MDLN) shares are indicated to open 6.9% above their initial public offering price, after the medical supplier raised $6.26 billion in the year’s biggest listing.
The shares are indicated at $31 each, versus the IPO price of $29. Medline, which counts Blackstone Inc., Carlyle Group Inc. and Hellman & Friedman among its backers, sold 216 million shares in an upsized offering that priced near the top of the marketed range.
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Medline manufactures and distributes medical supplies such as gloves, gowns and exam tables used by hospitals and doctors. The three private equity firms sealed a $34 billion deal to acquire a majority stake in the company in 2021, in one of the largest leveraged buyouts of all time.
The IPO surpassed the previous largest listing this year, Chinese battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd.’s $5.26 billion Hong Kong offering. In the US, it’s the biggest IPO since Rivian Automotive Inc.’s $13.7 billion deal in 2021.
The IPO pricing gave the company a market value of about $39 billion, based on the shares listed in its regulatory filings.
Medline’s debut ends the US IPO calendar with a bang, after market disruptions that delayed several long-awaited listings, and sets the stage for a banner 2026 led by a potential blockbuster SpaceX debut that’s set to be the largest on record.
First-time share sales in the US this year pulled in more than $46 billion, excluding blank-check firms, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Even with Medline, the total is expected to remain just below the nearly $50 billion raised per year on average in the decade before Covid.
At $6.26 billion, Medline is just the fifth US-listed firm to raise more than $5 billion in an IPO over the past decade, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The other four are Rivian, Uber Technologies Inc., Lineage Inc. and Arm Holdings Plc.
The company had lined up as much as $2.35 billion in commitments from so-called cornerstone investors including Baillie Gifford, Capital Group, Morgan Stanley’s Counterpoint Global, Durable Capital Partners, Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte, Janus Henderson Investors, Viking Global Investors and WCM Investment Management.
As part of the upsized deal, Medline earmarked proceeds from the sale of more than 37 million shares to buy stock from pre-IPO shareholders, according to a statement. Such so-called synthetic secondary deals allow private equity firms and long-term backers to generate returns without selling shares outright in a deal.
The upsized listing bolsters the case that next year will see private equity firms taking more of their portfolio companies public. Medline’s IPO is the biggest majority private equity-backed US listing, topping the $5.1 billion debut last year of Lineage Inc., which counts Bay Grove Capital as its main investor.
Blackstone-backed Copeland and EQT AB’s Reworld are among the candidates expected to pursue US IPOs in 2026.
Medline had filed confidentially for the listing with the US SEC late last year, but tariff uncertainty delayed its plans to go public in the first half of 2025. The US government shutdown in the second half further disrupted IPO preparations, with Medline finally filing publicly during the dispute, which ended Nov. 12.
Medline was founded by brothers Jon and Jim Mills in 1966. The Mills family remained Medline’s largest individual shareholder after the buyout, and members of the family and their affiliates had indicated an interest in buying up to $250 million in shares at the IPO, the filings show.
Since the private equity buyout, the company transitioned to new leadership under Jim Boyle, a 28-year company veteran and its first chief executive officer not related to the Mills family.
Medline offers a broad portfolio of about 335,000 medical-surgical products and has a supply chain that enables next-day delivery to 95% of US customers, the filings show. It has more than 43,000 employees worldwide.
Along with Medline-brand medical and surgical products, the company distributes items for third parties. According to executives, a key differentiator is how Medline seeks to replace many of those items with its own products over time.
The company had net income of $977 million on revenue of $20.6 billion for the nine months ending Sept. 27, compared with net income of $911 million on revenue of $18.7 billion a year earlier, according to the filings.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. led the offering, along with 21 joint bookrunning managers and 21 co-managers. Medline shares are set to trade on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol MDLN.
—With assistance from Michael Hytha.
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