Oaktree-backed Shoals valued at $5.22 billion after market debut

(Reuters) – Shares of Oaktree Capital-backed Shoals Technologies Group Inc jumped more than 25% in their Nasdaq debut on Wednesday, giving the solar-power components maker a market value of $5.22 billion.

The debut comes as a string of companies rush to capitalize on the red-hot U.S. initial public offering (IPO) market that shattered records over the past year.

A number of other clean energy companies have also gone public recently, including those who opted for blank-check deals to debut on stock exchanges such as electric-vehicle startups Nikola Corp and Fisker Inc.

Shoals’ shares opened at $31.3, well above their IPO price of $25 per share. The company offered 77 million shares in its upsized IPO, raising about $1.9 billion.

Portland, Tennessee-based Shoals provides so-called electrical balance of system, or EBOS, solutions for solar energy projects, which involve all of the components that are necessary to carry the electric current produced by solar panels to an inverter and ultimately to the power grid.

Those components, which include fuses and junction boxes, are sold to engineering and construction firms that build solar projects.

Oaktree Capital Management LP, through funds managed by its Power Opportunities group, acquired a majority stake in Shoals in May 2017, according to a regulatory filing.

Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Guggenheim Securities and UBS Investment Bank were the joint book-running managers for the offering.

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