FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German online car part retailer Autodoc is preparing a Frankfurt stock market flotation in the autumn that could value it at about 5 billion euros ($5.93 billion), people close to the matter said. Autodoc was set up in 2008 to disrupt a spares market seen by its founders as overcharging customers. Today it operates websites offering 2.5 million parts, such as springs, exhaust systems, body parts and clutches, for 166 car brands. The company is working with Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan on the initial public offering, with the help of Bank of America, Berenberg and Unicredit, the people said. Autodoc and the banks declined to comment. The Berlin-headquartered group in 2019 posted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization of 45 million euros on revenues of 615 million euros, and saw sales rise to more than 800 million in 2020. Next year, Autodoc’s core earnings are expected to rise to more than 150 million euros on sales of significantly more than 1 billion euros, one of the people said. Investors are likely to apply a mix of sales and earnings multiples when attempting to value the business, the people said. Peers in the online car industry including Carvana, Vroom and Auto1 trade in a range of 1-4 times their expected 2022 sales. E-commerce retailers such as Zalando, Allegro and THG trade at 2-10 times their expected 2022 sales and at more than 30 times their expected core earnings. Autodoc has said it benefited from the COVID-19 pandemic as customers shied away from buying new vehicles and the average age of Germany’s cars rose slightly to 9.6 years, boosting the demand for spare parts. The company, which employs more than 4,000 staff and offers video tutorials for DIY car repairs, is led by its founders Alexej Erdle, Max Wegner and Vitalij Kungel, as well as by former Scout24 manager Christian Gisy. ($1 = 0.8437 euros) Additional reporting by Alexander Hübner; Editing by Jan Harvey Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.