J&J’s Kenvue Prices IPO at $22 Per Share

(Bloomberg) — Johnson & Johnson’s consumer health business Kenvue Inc. raised $3.8 billion in an upsized initial public offering that is the biggest US listing since 2021.

Most Read from Bloomberg

Kenvue’s IPO price of $22 per share, which confirmed an earlier Bloomberg News report, is in the top half of the company’s marketed range of $20 to $23 each.

The company also expanded the number of shares it’s selling to 172.8 million from 151 million, according to a press release, giving Kenvue a market value of more than $41 billion.

The listing follows the slowest start to a year for US IPOs since 2016, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News.

Kenvue’s products include dozens of J&J brands that are household names, including Tylenol, Listerine, Neutrogena and Nicorette. On a pro forma basis, the business had net income of about $1.5 billion on sales of almost $15 billion for the year ended Jan. 1, according to its filings.

J&J, with a market value of more than $426 billion, has been saddled with thousands of lawsuits alleging talc in Johnson’s baby powder cause cancer. That’s contributed to a 9.8% decline in its share price in the past year in contrast to the 1% gain in the S&P 500 Health Care Index. While J&J is retaining liability for the talc cases, Kenvue has already been sued over talc-injury claims and has cautioned that it may be subject to claims arising outside the US and Canada.

Kenvue’s IPO is being led by Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp. Its shares are expected to begin trading Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol KVUE.

(Updates throughout with attribution from press release.)