Soho House Group, the global network of private members’ clubs, is to change its name and offer its shares to tens of thousands of customers as part of a plan to give it a flying start to life as a publicly listed company.
Sky News has learnt that Soho House is to rename its parent company Membership Collective Group (MCG) as part of an investor charm offensive to illustrate the range of services it now provides.
Banking sources said the company, which confidentially filed for a New York listing last month, was also working on a share offer enabling its 100,000 members around the world to subscribe for stock up to a specific threshold likely to be several thousand pounds.
Soho House is understood to have partnered with PrimaryBid, the British fintech company backed by the London Stock Exchange Group, to deliver the member offer, according to people close to the sources.
The company’s expansion plans include a club in Paris
It will mark PrimaryBid’s first foray into the US equity markets following deals in London this year which saw its platform used by PensionBee and Deliveroo to administer their ‘community’ offers.
The detail of Soho House’s plans are expected to be made public later this month.
The finishing touches to its initial public offering (IPO) are being applied weeks after Goldman Sachs placed a big bet on the company’s growth by providing it with a $770m (£560m) loan to help it accelerate its expansion.
Soho House’s banking syndicate is being led by JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley.
The company is expected to trade under the ticker MCG on the New York Stock Exchange, and is targeting a valuation of as much as $4bn (£2.9bn).
Despite the pandemic forcing many of its clubs around the world to close, the business has proved to be resilient, with barely 10% of its 110,000 members cancelling their subscription.
This year, it plans to open venues in Austin, Texas; Paris; and Rome.
Soho House members pay well over £1,000-a-year in fees to gain access to its venues, as well as discounted hotel rooms and consumer products sold under the Cowshed brand.
It has also launched a chain of Soho Works workspaces which are broadly comparable to the likes of WeWork.
Reflecting its decision to change its parent company name is the fact that it also operates The Ned, a vast members’ club near the Bank of England, and trades under the brand Scorpios, a club in Mykonos, Greece.
Originally conceived by founder Nick Jones as a networking venue for executives in the advertising, media and creative industries, a Soho House membership has become a status symbol for international executives working in sectors including music, fashion and broadcasting.
Mr Jones, who is married to the broadcaster Kirsty Young, opened its first site on Greek Street in Central London in 1995.
Its clubs have become a home-from-home for A-list celebrities, and its expansion has been aided by a series of deals, including the sale by Mr Jones of a controlling stake in the company to Richard Caring, the textiles tycoon, in 2008.
That transaction valued the company at about £130m, with a subsequent takeover by Ron Burkle, a Californian supermarket billionaire, four years later attributing a £250m price tag to Soho House.
Both Mr Jones and Mr Caring have remained as shareholders since then, with the former continuing to run the business as its chief executive.
Soho House raised another chunk of private funding last summer, but has decided that the capital required for future growth is better-accessed via public markets.
A spokesman for Soho House declined to comment.