Russia’s leading sport goods retailer Sportmaster may hold an IPO in London or Hong Kong in 2012, a banking source said on Thursday.
“They want to earn over $500 million and may go to London,” the source said.
Another banking source said the company had been in active talks with banks and investors in Hong Kong and might do the IPO there.
Sportmaster declined to comment on its IPO plans.
In late June, Dmitry Barkov, head of corporate finance at Sportmaster, said “the company has enough resources,” and it did not plan to take any loans or attract any strategic investors any time soon.
Set up in 1992 as a group of companies, Sportmaster has been a leader of retail and wholesale sport markets in Russia and former Soviet republics