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It has been a tough year for private equity companies looking to sell their investments to the public markets. In the first six months of the year there were only 14 exits, worth $5.2bn, via initial public offerings, according to Preqin data. Four years ago, the total was $37bn. Can the listing of a maker of washing machines restore the spin?

One problem is that companies unloaded by private equity on to public markets have performed patchily. Consumer-data firm NIQ Global Intelligence, educational content provider McGraw Hill and childcare centre operator KinderCare Learning are all trading well below their IPO prices. Buyout firms could use some more successful issues to show that not everything they proffer has already been wrung dry.

Alliance Laundry Systems is giving it a shot. The company behind the Speed Queen brand of washers and dryers this week successfully raised $826mn. Private equity owners BDT & MSD priced its upsized offering at the top end of the marketed range, valuing the company at $4.3bn. The shares gained 13 per cent on Thursday, their first day of trading.

On paper, making commercial and industrial laundry machines is classic private equity: stable and cash-generative. Alliance has managed to muster growth too, furnishing commercial laundromats in hotels, dorms and apartment buildings. With a 40 per cent share of the commercial laundry market in North America, it has increased revenue a compound annual rate of 9.5 per cent since 2010.

The company does, however, bear another classic feature of private equity-owned companies: debt. It had more than $2bn of net borrowings at the end of June — or nearly six times the company’s 2024 ebitda — up from $1.2bn at the end of 2023. Yet BDT & MSD, its co-investors and a group of management shareholders took out a $900mn dividend payment last August. Alliance says its IPO proceeds will help pay down its debts.

There is something reassuring about Alliance’s sturdy first-day performance, especially in a market that is bloated with artificial intelligence hype. True, the company says it uses machine learning to develop features such as “predictive maintenance”, but it’s hardly the company’s main selling point. It suggests that mature industrial companies can generate enthusiasm too.

Investors, of course, will need to be wary of companies coming to market overly burdened with borrowings and whose private equity owners will retain majority voting rights, as is the case with Alliance. Nonetheless, the signs are encouraging for all those buyout firms hoping their past acquisitions will come out in the wash.

pan.yuk@ft.com

The gold rally rippling through global markets is reverberating from trading floors down to the cramped corridors of Manhattan’s Diamond District, where shop owners hawking bangles and coins are cashing in on quick deals.

Bullion’s surge past $4,000 an ounce this week means chatter in the Midtown district — a go-to destination for traders dealing gems and precious metals for more than a century — has been as much about market charts as carats and cuts. The buying and selling has roiled jewelers as they plot strategy around their inventory and attempt to keep pace with the change in prices.

HOUSTON (Reuters) -Brent and U.S. crude futures fell more than $2 a barrel, or over 3%, on Friday as confidence grew the Gaza peace agreement between Israel and Hamas was taking hold.

Brent crude futures were down $2.16, or 3.31%, at $63.06 a barrel at 10:37 a.m. CDT (1537 GMT), the lowest since early June.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was down $2.15, or 3.45%, to $59.40, the lowest since early May.

“President Trump’s ceasefire announcement immediately took the premium out of the price of oil, not only because of Israel and Hamas but also the reduction of a risk that Iranian proxies would continue to attack oil vessels in the Red Sea and other places,” said Phil Flynn, senior analyst with the Price Futures Group.

CEASEFIRE AGREEMENT

Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas signed a ceasefire agreement on Thursday in the first phase of U.S. President Donald Trump’s initiative to end the war in Gaza.

Under the deal, which Israel’s government ratified on Friday, fighting will cease, Israel will partially withdraw from Gaza, and Hamas will free all remaining hostages it captured in the attack that precipitated the war, in exchange for hundreds of prisoners held by Israel.

Numerous vessels have been attacked by the Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen since 2023, targeting ships they deem linked to Israel in what they described as solidarity with Palestinians over the war in Gaza.

The Gaza ceasefire deal means the focus can move back to the impending oil surplus, as OPEC proceeds with the unwinding of production cuts, said Daniel Hynes, an analyst at ANZ.

A smaller-than-expected November hike in output agreed by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies (OPEC+) on Sunday eased some of those oversupply concerns.

“Markets’ expectations for a sharp ramp-up in crude supply have not manifested themselves in substantially lower prices,” BMI analysts said in a note on Friday.

Investors are also worried that a prolonged U.S. government shutdown could dampen the American economy and hurt oil demand in the world’s largest crude consumer.

(Reporting by Erwin Seba in Houston, Anna Hirtenstein in London; Additional reporting by Stephanie Kelly and Sudarshan Varadhan; Editing by Christian Schmollinger, Mark Potter, Nia Williams and Andrea Ricci)