Viking Sails Luxury Cruises IPO

The Viking Experience is the antithesis of the fun entertainment marketed by the big cruise lines on big ships. The price is higher. No children under 18 are allowed aboard Viking—55+ is the focus of river cruises—and there is no casino. Founded in 1997, Viking has become synonymous with European water travel through clever marketing, especially PBS sponsorship. Masterpiece Theater And its hit suit Downton Church. Currently, Viking operates 92 ships, including 58 long river cruises that carry 190 passengers in Each beam. It moved into the ocean market in 2015.

Viking times are good. Investors flocked to luxury stocks such as Ferrari and Hermès.

The offering, with the ticker VIK, will represent a rating for CEO Torstein Hagen and for TPG and the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board. Before the IPO, Hagen owned about 54% of the company, with TPG and CPP about 21% each.

Viking has an ambitious, but challenging, growth plan. There are only so many rivers to ply, and luxury is relative. For example, luxury travel specialist Tauck notes on its website that its cruise ships hold no more than 130 guests.

market

Bitcoin “halved” on April 19, cutting in half the supply of new Bitcoins. The index has stopped falling in the week that started, there is a fight against fear. eyes, and fell after the growth data in March in the low. Inflation in March mirrored that of February, but then technology drove Friday’s rally. For the week, the Dow Industrials rose 0.67%, the S&P 500 rose 2.67%, and the Nasdaq Composite, 4.23%.

Company

The meeting passed and President Biden signed aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, and told ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a US ban. Tesla missed profit and revenue expectations, while promising cheaper models and robotics. General Motors interprets expectations and issues recommendations; Ford Motor also hit. Meta Platforms hit but fell hard for weak guidance and ambitious AI. Alphabet and Microsoft beat expectations. The Federal Trade Commission has voted to ban most non-compete agreements.

Proposal

Blackstone offers $1.5 billion to buy music rights investor Hipgnosis, Just had Apollo Global-backed Concord on top of it by a fraction of the money… Talks between Salesforce and Informatica are overpriced founders…After a mixed earnings call, it said it had bought HashiCorp for $6.4 billion. .. BHP made a $39 billion all-share offer for Anglo American.