Aeromexico seeks US IPO after delisting Mexico shares

Grupo Aeromexico SAB is seeking a return to equity markets, filing for a US initial public offering two years after delisting from the Mexican stock exchange. 

The company intends to list American Depositary shares or ADS on the NYSE under the symbol AERO and there will be no public offering of the shares in Mexico, Aeromexico said in the prospectus. The company didn’t disclose the size or price range of the offering.

Barclays, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Evercore ISI and Apollo Global Securities will be underwriters for the deal.  

Aeromexico, the country’s only remaining legacy airline, emerged from Chapter 11 in March 2022 after filing for bankruptcy protection in the US in 2020 amid a downturn in air travel due to the Covid 19 pandemic. The exit agreement included a clause promising to delist in Mexico to find better markets with more liquidity. 

The global pandemic led the carrier’s passengers to plummet by more than 90% in 2020. Aeromexico, unlike its counterparts in the US and Europe, received little to no support from the government. The company has since recovered, with 2023 revenue seeing a 29% jump from 2022, according to the IPO filing. 

Aeromexico’s fleet is comprised of 144 Boeing Co and Embraer SA aircraft.

Market Rebound

Following the Chapter 11 restructuring, a group of strategic Mexican shareholders, including Lala Chairman Eduardo Tricio, own 4.1% of Aeromexico. Apollo Global Management, which led the debtor-in-possession financing, retained a stake of about 22% while Delta held on to 20%. 

Aeromexico is the second company this year to prefer a US listing to a Mexican one. In February, Mexican discount retailer BBB Foods Inc.’s IPO raised $589 million, adding momentum to a rebound in US listings.  

Share sales out of Mexico have picked up in the past year, with $1.2 billion in secondary equity issues in the US and Mexico last year from companies profiting from a boom in factory output, tripling the amount raised in 2022. That marks a departure from previous years, with Mexico’s stock exchange, long suffering from poor liquidity, seeing in 2021 more delistings than offerings.