Cabot shelves IPO plans

The board of the debt purchaser said proceeding with the transaction would not be in the best interest of the company or its shareholders - given the current IPO and broader market conditions.

In October, Cabot announced it expected the IPO to be completed by the end of November this year.

However, at the beginning of November when Cabot posted its financial results for the three months to September 30, it was revealed that the company’s IPO costs had increased its operating expenses more than 10-fold to £4.2m for the third quarter of 2017.

The results also stated that Cabot had expected to raise gross primary proceeds of about £195m from the IPO.

Cabot has today said it will continue to deliver on its growth strategy and “re-consider an initial public offering at such time as market conditions become more supportive.”

Ken Stannard, chief executive of Cabot, said: “The high level of engagement and interest that we received from a wide array of investors was very encouraging, but the timing has been unfortunate with respect to IPO market conditions.”