Metatek IPO prices below marketing range, reflecting soft investor demand
Metatek-Group Ltd. priced its initial public offering below the deal’s marketing range, and the technology company is also raising less money than originally planned, reflecting soft investor demand for IPOs in Canada.
Late Wednesday, Metatek, which is based in Britain and uses a technology called full tensor gravity gradiometry to create detailed underground maps, priced its IPO on the Toronto Stock Exchange at $5 per share, raising a total of $40-million.
The company initially set out to raise $50-million and hoped to price the deal between $5.75 and $6.25 per share.
The deal follows a Toronto IPO from AGT Food and Ingredients Inc. AGTF-T earlier in March that raised $450-million, but that was also priced below its marketing range. AGT’s shares are down 18 per cent in their first two weeks of trading.
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After a flurry of technology deals during the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada has experienced a drought of IPOs for multiple years. Many of the companies that went public in 2021 and 2022 watched their share prices tumble, and a number of these companies went private again in buyouts from private equity firms well below their IPO prices.
Optimism for an IPO revival re-emerged this year after a strong 2025 for the S&P/TSX Composite Index, coupled with heavy investor demand for share sales from companies that are already public. Yet the results of AGTs and Metatek’s deals suggest IPOs remain tough sells.
The timing of both offerings has been part of the problem. Both IPOs priced in March, right after the United States and Israel started a war with Iran. Stock markets around the world have since sold off, and the S&P/TSX Composite Index is down 5.9 per cent since the start of March.
While Metatek is a British company, its largest shareholder is Calgary-based private equity firm PillarFour Capital Partners Inc., which is selling $5-million worth of its shares in the offering.
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When reviewing its options to go public, Metatek chose Canada because the company’s technology is often deployed to search for minerals and oil and gas.
“It is a technology name, but because of Canadian investors’ broad understanding of minerals, mining, and oil and gas, we just thought it was the natural home for us,” PillarFour co-founder Paul Colucci said in an interview with The Globe and Mail earlier this month.
Metatek works with governments around the world, including Japan, Singapore, Nigeria, Egypt, Azerbaijan and Colombia, to help them understand the state of their natural resources.
The company generated roughly US$23.5-million in revenue last year, nearly double the amount of money it brought in during 2024.
