Norwegian billionaire Torstein Hagen is looking to float Viking Holdings on the New York Stock Exchange.
Viking and existing shareholders plan to sell shares in the offering, according to a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
“We view going public as a natural move to further solidify our position as a great company,” founder, chairman and chief executive Hagen said.
Viking was founded in 1997. It has a fleet of 92 vessels, offering river, ocean and expedition voyages on all seven continents and boasted revenue of $4.7bn last year.
According to Forbes, at the start of April Hagen was worth $1.5bn.
In 2016, he sold a 23% of Viking Cruises to TPG Capital and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board for $672m.
“Throughout my career, I have always defined a great company as one that is loved by its customers, loved by its employees and feared by its competitors. Becoming a public company will increase our financial flexibility and may help us realise future opportunities,” Hagen added.
The preliminary prospectus does not state the number of offered shares or the price of the shares.
“Although the transition from private to public can be seen as a daunting change, Viking has from the very beginning operated in ways that are not all that dissimilar from those of a public company,” Hagen said.
“We have had a board of directors composed mainly of non-management and external members; we have made decisions based on facts and data; we have aligned our management compensation with our shareholders’ interests and we have raised capital from various sources, including private equity funds and the bond market,” he said.
The company has two classes of shares: ordinary shares and special shares.
Viking posted a loss of $1.85bn in 2023, while adjusted Ebitda came in at $1.09bn in the black.
Hagen said Viking has “used periods of economic downturn or lower consumer demand to secure favourable conditions for our future newbuilding programme in the form of competitive prices and attractive financing”.
“We will continue to be contrarian. We will always emphasise the importance of a long-term view and shareholder value creation, rather than focusing solely on quarterly results. This may mean making use of unusual opportunities as they come along, even if short-term profitability is impacted,” Hagen said.
Hagen has assembled a cast of eight investment banks to help with the offering. BofA Securities, JP Morgan, UBS Investment Bank, Wells Fargo Securities, HSBC, Morgan Stanley, Rothschild & Co and Stifel are underwriters for the IPO.
“Looking towards the future, we believe there are a number of opportunities for growing Viking. We have 24 new ships on order with options for 12 more. We have also started to enter new markets, such as China and elsewhere in Asia, where we see significant growth potential over the long term,” Hagen said.
Hagen founded Viking in 2007 and has a long history in the cruise business. He was the chief executive of Bergen Line from 1976 to 1983 and of Royal Viking Line from 1981 to 1984.
He was a member of the board of directors of Holland America Line/HAL Holding from 1985 to 2015, and was a member of the board of directors of Kloster Cruise from 1993 to 1994. Harvard University graduate Hagen was formerly a partner at McKinsey & Company in Europe.
His daughter Karine Hagen is part of the management team and is the face of the brand in Viking’s television adverts and cultural enrichment films, Viking said.
