(Bloomberg) -- Honeywell International Inc. is considering an initial public offering of its majority-owned quantum computing firm Quantinuum as soon as next year, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
The firm has held discussions with several investment banks about a potential listing in the US and could seek a valuation of about $10 billion for Quantinuum, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the information is private.
Honeywell shares jumped as much as 2.6% on Friday following the Bloomberg News report, their largest intraday move since early June. They have declined about 2% this year, valuing the company at around $133 billion.
Deliberations are at an early stage and details of the plan could change, the people said. A representative for Honeywell declined to comment, while a representative for Quantinuum didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Quantinuum was formed in 2021 by the merger of Cambridge Quantum and Honeywell Quantum Solutions. It has about 500 employees across offices in the US, UK, Germany and Japan, according to its website.
In January, Honeywell closed a $300 million funding round for the quantum computing firm at a pre-money valuation of $5 billion. JPMorgan Chase & Co. led the fundraising with participation from Mitsui & Co. and Amgen Inc. Honeywell also re-invested. The January round took Quantinuum’s total fundraising to about $625 million since its inception.
Quantum computers harness the unique properties of atoms, employing quantum bits, or qubits, that provide exponentially more computing power than computer code that uses ones and zeroes. Quantum-computer makers, including International Business Machines Corp., have been improving the technology to reduce errors and scale up the number of qubits.
(Updates with share move in third paragraph.)
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