The People’s Operator (TPO) has raised £20m (US$31m) by listing on AIM, a sub-market of the London Stock Exchange, giving the UK MVNO a valuation of £100m (US$157m).
Shareholders in TPO, which piggybacks on EE’s network, surrendered around 19% of…
The People’s Operator (TPO) has raised £20m (US$31m) by listing on AIM, a sub-market of the London Stock Exchange, giving the UK MVNO a valuation of £100m (US$157m).
Shareholders in TPO, which piggybacks on EE’s network, surrendered around 19% of their share capital in the initial public offering, which was managed by UK broker FinnCap.
The MVNO now has a total of 77 million shares valued at £1.30 each.
TPO co-founder Andrew Rosenfeld’s stake fell by 11.4%, but he remains the majority shareholder holding 56.1% of the business. His two fellow co-founders now own 17.2% between them and Jimmy Wales, the internet entrepreneur behind Wikipedia, has 7.7%.
Meanwhile, insurance group Aviva has become the fifth largest investor in TPO after acquiring 4% of the virtual operator in the listing.
TPO was founded as an ethical company and has committed to put 25% of its profits into a charitable foundation. The telco also donates 10% of each user’s bill to a charity of their choice.
In a stock exchange filing, TPO said it believes this model will enable it to retain customers for longer than the market average through a strong attachment to their chosen causes.
Proceeds from the offering will be used to grow its online community to gain more customers, as well as build the infrastructure required to expand into identified target countries, particularly the US, according to a previous securities filing.
TPO plans to launch in the US next spring where it has an MVNO agreement with nationwide network operator Sprint Corp.
The virtual operator will look to expand in other countries, but only ones which offer competitive wholesale mobile network prices.
