Investment bank Lincoln International eyes $2 billion valuation in U.S. IPO

Options trader Anthony Spina, foreground, works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Lincoln International said on Monday it was targeting a valuation of up to roughly US$2 billion in its New York initial public offering, in what could be one of the biggest U.S. investment bank listings in nearly two decades.

The Chicago, Illinois-based boutique investment bank and selling stockholders are seeking up to US$421 million in the IPO by offering nearly 21 million shares priced between $18 and $20 apiece.

The spring IPO market is seeing a strong pickup in activity after a brief lull in March as issuers look past geopolitical uncertainty to move ahead with their listing plans.

“The IPO window only needed to crack open a bit and companies rushed to take advantage,” said Matt Kennedy, senior strategist at Renaissance Capital, a provider of IPO-focused research and ETFs.

Still, he warned that the “IPO window feels somewhat precarious” with the Iran war weighing on the markets and investors “quick to dump shares if cracks emerge.”

Founded in 1996 by Jim Lawson and Rob Barr, Lincoln is a mid-market-focused investment bank, advising private capital markets on selling and buying businesses, securing financing and valuing their organization or portfolio.

It operates from over 30 offices across 14 countries with roughly 1,400 professionals as of Dec. 31.

Lincoln, whose backlog was at an all-time high as of Dec. 31, posted net income of $1.9 million on revenue of $157.8 million in the three months ended March 31, compared with net income of $24 million on revenue of $132.2 million a year earlier.

Rare investment bank IPO

Investment bank IPOs in New York have been few and far between in the past two decades, with Lincoln’s offering set to be among the biggest since Lazard’s $855 million IPO in 2005, according to Dealogic data.

Boutique banks Moelis and Houlihan Lokey went public in New York through traditional IPOs in 2014 and 2015, respectively.

Most recently, Perella Weinberg Partners listed in New York in 2021 through a merger with Betsy Cohen’s blank-check firm.

Lincoln’s offering also comes at an opportune moment for M&A-focused advisers, as dealmaking continues to accelerate in 2026, underpinned by a more friendly regulatory regime in ​the U.S.

Roughly $2 trillion in deals have been announced so far this year, 33 per cent more than this time last year, Dealogic data showed.

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are joint lead bookrunners. Lincoln will list on the NYSE under the symbol “LCLN.”

(Reporting by Arasu Kannagi Basil in Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore)