Koala hires Barrenjoey for $500m-plus I PO | Short sellers circle Tim Goyder’s Chal ice and Liontown | AACo’s billionaire suito r in Darwin

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Koala, the online boxed mattress retailer which has expanded into a range of furniture and homewares, is exploring an ASX listing that it hopes would see the decade-old start-up valued at more than $500 million.

Street Talk can reveal Koala is working with Barrenjoey Capital Partners as it weighs an ASX debut, four months after Dany Milham took over from his mild-mannered co-founder Mitch Taylor as the company’s chief executive. The duo own just over 50 per cent of Koala, with the rest in the hands of investors like Perennial Partners, Alium Capital Management and cricketer Steve Smith.

People who were briefed on the discussions said Koala’s run at the ASX boards was dependent on whether comparable businesses maintained a recent surge in their valuations.

In particular, Milham and his bankers are said to be taking their cues from Temple & Webster, an online furniture retailer whose share price has more than doubled in the past two years and hit a record-high last month thanks to strong growth in active customers as well as basket size.

“Koala does not comment on market speculation,” a Koala spokesman said.

Koala joins TPG Capital’s pets and vets business Greencross, Bain Capital’s Virgin Australia and American Industrial Partners′ MolyCop in the IPO pipeline, alongside smaller names such as Singapore-headquartered digital infrastructure group Campana and a slew of Canadian miners that are exploring secondary listings on the ASX.

Read the full story tomorrow and more on the Street Talk page.

Tim Goyder’s Liontown Resources and Chalice Mining were on short sellers’ radar on Monday morning, after the former billionaire sold down on Friday.

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