By Manya Saini
April 22 (Reuters) - Convenience store operator Yesway's shares jumped 10% in their Nasdaq debut on Wednesday, signaling a revival in investor appetite for new listings as equity markets hover near record highs.
It joins a flurry of companies taking advantage of the spring window to advance IPO plans, as concerns over a protracted conflict in the Middle East and AI disruption to legacy software businesses ease.
Yesway, which sells everything from fast food to soft drinks and its signature
Allsup's burrito, raised $280 million in its initial public offering by selling 14 million shares at $20 each. The stock opened at $22 apiece.
Backed by private equity firm Brookwood Financial Partners, Yesway is the fifteenth-largest convenience store operator in the U.S. by store count, with most of its locations concentrated in communities of fewer than 20,000 people.
The company said in its IPO prospectus that while short-term increases in retail fuel prices do not typically affect its fuel sales volumes, prolonged periods of higher prices may weigh on demand.
The crisis in the Middle East, particularly disruptions to traffic through the Strait of Hormuz — a critical global oil chokepoint — has triggered sharp volatility, with crude briefly rising above $100 a barrel earlier this year.
"We got into this business because we believe that it was recession-resistant and not subject to a lot of outside macro and micro influences," CEO Thomas Trkla told Reuters in an interview.
Convenience retail draws strong interest because the business can perform well across cycles, whether interest rates or oil prices are high or low, and regardless of the broader political environment, he said.
Trkla said the company has expanded inside merchandise margins from the mid-20% range to about 36% currently, and is targeting 41% over time.
The strong debut bodes well for other consumer-sector IPOs, with listings having largely been absent due to high interest rates, tariff uncertainty and weak risk appetite.
(Reporting by Manya Saini in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)
