Medline Injects Juice Into IPOs As Years Biggest Listing ($6.26B In Straight Cash Homie)

“I’ll take “signs of another pandemic” for $1,000 please…” 

Wait, so AI got the TIME’s Person of the Year… and the biggest IPO ends up being a company that makes gloves and exam tables? The math ain’t mathin’ here LOL. In short, Medline just priced a $6.26B IPO, making it the largest listing of the year. That’s Medline… a medical supply company that isn’t named OpenAI, Databricks, or God help us… xAI. We’re talking about a medical supply distributor your hospital admin has on speed dial. 

(Source: Giphy) 

Translation: Tell me Wall Street knows something about 2026 that plebs like you and I don’t know… without telling me. 

As for the shares, they are priced at $29, near the top of the range, valuing the company around $39B. The deal was upsized, stuffed with cornerstone investors, and quietly devoured by institutions that claim they “don’t chase deals” while doing exactly that. And if this feels aggressively unsexy, that’s the point. Medline is the final form of private equity portfolio optimization. Founded in 1966. Acquired in a $34B LBO in 2021 by Blackstone, Carlyle, and Hellman & Friedman. Sat in timeout during tariff panic, shutdown chaos, and IPO market trauma. Then walked out, shrugged, and took the Iron Throne anyway. 

(Source: Bloomberg) 

In other words, Medline is just a massive distribution business that already touches basically every hospital in America and prints enough cash to keep everyone calm. Case in point: revenue for the first nine months hit the golden buzzer with $20.6B, while net income came in at $977M. Employee workforce of 43,000 and nice side of next-day delivery to 95% of U.S. customers. Juicy. For this reason, the real winners here aren’t retail investors chasing allocations… it’s private equity reminding the market that boring still works, leverage still works, and if you wait long enough, the exit door eventually opens. Also worth noting: this is now the largest PE-backed IPO ever, topping last year’s Lineage deal. Are they aware that Series L’s exist? Asking for a friend… LOL. 

As for IPO sentiment as a whole… Even with Medline, total U.S. IPO proceeds this year are still hovering below the pre-COVID average. However, the headline here is more important: when the first big winner is a supply-chain workhorse instead of a narrative rocket ship, it tells you exactly what investors want right now. And that’s cashflow, predictability, and no surprises. 

(Source: Giphy) 

Meaning, AI can have the magazine covers… but right now, Medline is taking the money. And if that doesn’t tell you we may be “in a bubble”, then I don’t know what does. That said, place your bets accordingly, friends. Until next time… 

At the time of publishing, Stocks.News does not hold positions in companies mentioned in the article.