Spotify considers directly selling its shares to the retail public with no underwriter involvement.

Rose Prince

2018-01-08 10:37:00 Mon ET

Spotify considers directly selling its shares to the retail public with no underwriter involvement. The music-streaming company plans a direct list on NYSE in lieu of a hot IPO. This alternative procedure can be cheaper, faster, and less legally risky to the issuer. The issuer may then lose its first-day price run-up in a hot IPO, which seldom benefits anyone apart from the institutional investors who receive an initial allocation of shares. In contrast, most startups file for an IPO through investment banks. These underwriters round up institutional investors to buy the issuer's fresh shares in order to establish a fair market price. Through a promotional roadshow, the underwriters commit to covering these new shares in their due diligence and fair valuation. The underwriters receive a considerable bounty in the order of 3%-5% of the IPO price (e.g. $300 million fee-payment to Alibaba's underwriters).

As cash-rich companies such as Spotify, Uber, and Airbnb have little incentive to raise capital via IPOs, these cash cows prefer to directly list on stock exchanges. Spotify can thus bypass firm commitment on the part of IPO-fee-driven investment banks. Nevertheless, the direct list may expose Spotify to bear raid by short-sellers, little underwriter liability, and less blue-sky transparency. This direct list option may attract more unicorns into the U.S. public stock market.

 


If any of our AYA Analytica financial health memos (FHM), blog posts, ebooks, newsletters, and notifications etc, or any other form of online content curation, involves potential copyright concerns, please feel free to contact us at service@ayafintech.network so that we can remove relevant content in response to any such request within a reasonable time frame.

Blog+More

Warren Buffett points out that it is important to invest in oneself with better interpersonal communication.

Daphne Basel

2017-12-17 11:41:00 Sunday ET

Warren Buffett points out that it is important to invest in oneself with better interpersonal communication.

Warren Buffett points out that it is important to invest in oneself. Learning about oneself empowers him or her to lead a meaningful life. This valuable inv

+See More

AYA finbuzz podcast offers fresh insights into the latest stock market topics and economic trends for better stock investment decisions.

Daphne Basel

2019-09-30 07:33:00 Monday ET

AYA finbuzz podcast offers fresh insights into the latest stock market topics and economic trends for better stock investment decisions.

AYA Analytica finbuzz podcast channel on YouTube September 2019 In this podcast, we discuss several topical issues as of September 2019: (1) Former

+See More

President-Elect Donald Trump wants Apple and its tech peers to consider better and greater high-tech job creation in America.

James Campbell

2017-01-03 03:26:00 Tuesday ET

President-Elect Donald Trump wants Apple and its tech peers to consider better and greater high-tech job creation in America.

President-Elect Donald Trump wants Apple and its tech peers to consider better and greater high-tech job creation in America. Apple has asked its primary

+See More

Stock Synopsis: With a new Python program, we use, adapt, apply, and leverage each of the mainstream Gemini Gen AI models to conduct this comprehensive fundamental analysis of AMD (U.S. stock symbol: $AMD).

John Fourier

2025-10-08 11:34:00 Wednesday ET

Stock Synopsis: With a new Python program, we use, adapt, apply, and leverage each of the mainstream Gemini Gen AI models to conduct this comprehensive fundamental analysis of AMD (U.S. stock symbol: $AMD).

Stock Synopsis: With a new Python program, we use, adapt, apply, and leverage each of the mainstream Gemini Gen AI models to conduct this comprehensive fund

+See More

Tech stock prices tumble due to Trump's criticism of Amazon's tax avoidance, Facebook data breach of trust, and Tesla autopilot incidence.

Dan Rochefort

2018-03-29 14:28:00 Thursday ET

Tech stock prices tumble due to Trump's criticism of Amazon's tax avoidance, Facebook data breach of trust, and Tesla autopilot incidence.

Share prices tumble for technology stocks due to Trump's criticism of Amazon's tax avoidance, Facebook user data breach of trust, and Tesla autopilo

+See More

All of the 18 systemically important banks pass the annual Federal Reserve stress tests.

James Campbell

2019-07-30 15:33:00 Tuesday ET

All of the 18 systemically important banks pass the annual Federal Reserve stress tests.

All of the 18 systemically important banks pass the annual Federal Reserve stress tests. Many of the largest lenders announce higher cash payouts to shareho

+See More