Medline debuts on Nasdaq after largest IPO of 2025
Shares of the US medical supply giant Medline made its debut on the Nasdaq on Wednesday after the world’s largest initial public offering of the year.
The stock opened at $35, above its IPO price of $29. Shares closed up more than 41% at $41 per share, pushing Medline’s market cap to about $54 billion.
The private equity firm sold just over 216 million shares on Tuesday, raising $6.26 billion in a larger offering that capped a strong year for new listings and bolstered optimism about the 2026 IPO market. Medline shares trade under the symbol MDLN.
That IPO price gives Medline a market value of at least $37 billion, based on shares listed in its regulatory filings.
“Historically we’ve done very little advertising, very little marketing, and this gives us an opportunity to amplify our voice and really broaden the receptivity of who we are,” Medline CEO Jim Boyle said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Wednesday. “We’re the biggest company you’ve never heard of, and we happen to be everywhere. And that’s a really interesting thing.”
The U.S. IPO market has held steady despite market volatility in the spring caused by President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs and the longest U.S. government shutdown in history in the fall. Just over 200 IPOs were priced this year, including Medline, the largest U.S. listing since then RivianAccording to data compiled by CNBC, the $13.7 billion deal closed in November 2021.
But Medline’s IPO is also one of the largest IPOs financed by private equity. Three private equity firms – Blackstone, Carlyle and Hellman & Friedman – acquired a majority stake in the company in 2021 for a whopping $34 billion. At the time, the deal was the largest leveraged buyout since the financial crisis.
CEO Jim Boyle celebrates with others as medical supplies giant Medline (MDLN) holds its initial public offering at the Nasdaq Stock Exchange in Times Square in New York on December 17, 2025.
Shannon Stapleton | Reuters
Medline was founded in 1966 and is based in Northfield, Illinois. The company produces and sells around 335,000 different medical and surgical supplies – from gloves, masks and scalpels to wheelchairs. Medline has customers in more than 100 countries and employed more than 43,000 people worldwide at the end of 2024.
Medline’s total debt was approximately $16.8 billion at the end of September 2025. The company had net sales of $25.5 billion in 2024.
Medline’s previous plans to go public this year were postponed due to uncertainty over tariffs on products from Asia. The majority of the Company’s products are sourced or manufactured in Asian countries, particularly China.
Medline expects tariffs to hit pretax profits by $150 million to $200 million in fiscal 2026.
The company competes with names like McKesson And Cardinal Health.
—CNBC’s Gina Francolla contributed to this report
