Goldman Sachs bought £75m of Deliveroo shares to prop up IPO price

Goldman Sachs bought £75m of Deliveroo shares to prop up IPO price

Goldman Sachs bought about £75m in Deliveroo shares to prop up trading in the UK food delivery group after investors shunned its market debut, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.

The purchases by Deliveroo's underwriters equate to nearly a quarter of the value of shares traded in the London-based group during its first two days as a public company last week, according to Bloomberg data.

The stock's debut attracted unusually low levels of trading for one of London's biggest initial public offerings in years. Volumes were around a third of what Deliveroo's advisers had anticipated.

Shares in Deliveroo tumbled as much as 31 per cent after banks priced the shares at 390p each in the £1.5bn IPO, which has been dubbed the worst in the history of the London market.

The £75m worth of purchases by Goldman Sachs, when used in combination with the "overallotment“ reserved for stabilising the IPO, mean the bank should have booked a profit from Deliveroo's declining share price.

This is because brokers sell more stock than their allotments at the issue price and then cover their orders either by exercising the overallotment option or, if the shares fall, by buying in the market at below the