Turkey’s Mavi Giyim, owner of the popular blue jeans brand Mavi, will hold bookbuilding over June 8-9 to offer a stake of up to 55% in an IPO with a price range of TRY43-51 (€11-13) per share, an unnamed source told Reuters on May 30. In March, Bloomberg, quoting anonymous sources with knowledge of the move, reported that the IPO could value the company at around $800 million.

The IPO will value the company at TRY2.1-2.5bn ($586.7mn-$703.1mn) while Mavi - a brand favoured by A-list celebrities including Lady Gaga - is expected to raise up to TRY1.1-1.5bn, according to the source.

Mavi’s IPO could amount to the largest float on the bourse in years. Companies in Turkey have raised about $508mn from IPOs since 2015. The largest ever IPO on the Istanbul exchange is that of insurance provider Avivasa Emeklilik & Hayat AS which in 2014 valued the company at TRY1.68bn.

Only $14.3mn has been raised by IPOs held on Bourse Istanbul so far this year, a significantly lower figure than the $119.9mn recoreded for the same period of last year, according to Reuters data.

The initial public offering will see an initial 50% stake in the denim and jeans-wear brand floated, while there will be an option to sell an additional 15%.

The consolidated revenue of Mavi stood at TRY1.31bn and its Ebitda was TRY170mn in 2016.

Mavi Jeans was founded in 1991 by the Akarlilar family. By 2016 it was the 166th biggest company in Turkey, according to Fortune 500 Research, up from the 189th and 221st places recorded for the firm in 2014 and 2013, respectively.

Mavi (Turkish for “blue”) has flagship stores in cities including New York, Moscow, Hamburg, Berlin, Vancouver and Montreal. Kate Winslet and Chelsea Clinton are other celebrities who wear its jeans brand, while in 2012 Brazilian model and actress Adriana Lima signed a contract with the firm for a marketing campaign with a series of commercials.

The company sells more than 7mn pairs of jeans each year through more than 390 Mavi stores and over 5,000 points of sale in more than 50 countries.

Turkven Private Equity Fund II and the Akarlilar family have mandated Goldman Sachs to serve as global coordinator and, along with Bank of America Corp's Merrill Lynch, joint international bookrunner for the IPO.

Turkey's Is Yatirim is acting as domestic coordinator and bookrunner for the offering.

Shares will be offered to international institutional investors and domestic retail and institutional investors.

On May 12, ambitions to make the London Stock Exchange (LSE) initial public offering of Turkey’s Global Ports Holding (GPH) one of the biggest London listings of the year sank when the float priced at the bottom end of the range. The largest international operator of cruise ports raised $230mn from the IPO of a 38.2% stake.

The price range for the IPO was set at between 735-875 pence sterling per share, meaning that the company was assessed as having a market capitalisation of from $598mn to $697mn. The final IPO price was 740 pence sterling per share.