Airline Caterer Gategroup said to pick banks for Zurich IPO

[ZURICH] The world’s biggest in-flight caterer Gategroup Holding has selected banks for an initial public offering, which could take place as soon as the second half of next year, people familiar with the matter said.

Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and UBS Group have been picked to help with the preparations for the potential listing in Zurich, the people said, asking not to be identified as the information is private.

There’s no final decision on the size, and the location and timing of the offering could change, the people said. More banks could be added later, they said.

Representatives for Gategroup, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and UBS declined to comment.

Gategroup, the former airline catering business of Swiss Air, is co-owned by Singapore’s Temasek Holdings and Hong Kong-based private equity firm RRJ Capital. The firm first listed on the Swiss stock exchange in 2009, before it delisted when it was acquired by HNA Group in 2017. Representatives for Temasek and RRJ also declined to comment. 

A Gategroup IPO would be a second run at a return to public markets, after an attempt in 2018 was called off due to weak investor demand. Gategroup was looking to raise as much as US$1.4 billion at the time.

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World’s largest airline caterer Gategroup, co-owned by Temasek, said to be prepping for IPO

RRJ Capital bought the company in 2019, valuing the firm at about US$2.8 billion. A year later, the Swiss airline catering company was tipped into a crisis by the coronavirus pandemic and subsequently underwent a restructuring. Gategroup is the world’s largest provider of airline catering services in terms of revenue, according to its 2024 annual report. BLOOMBERG