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

Chinese President Xi JingPing calls President Trump to reach Sino-American trade conflict resolution.

Monica McNeil

2019-01-04 11:41:00 Friday ET

Chinese President Xi JingPing calls President Trump to reach Sino-American trade conflict resolution.

Chinese President Xi JingPing calls President Trump to reach Sino-American trade conflict resolution. Xi sends a congratulatory message to mark 40 years sin

+See More

OPEC countries have cut the global glut of oil production in order to boost the oil price in recent years.

Monica McNeil

2018-05-11 09:37:00 Friday ET

OPEC countries have cut the global glut of oil production in order to boost the oil price in recent years.

OPEC countries have cut the global glut of oil production in recent years while the resultant oil price has surged from $30 to $78 per barrel from 2015 to 2

+See More

Allianz chairman Mohamed El-Erian bolsters a new American economic paradigm in lieu of the Washington consensus.

Apple Boston

2018-04-20 10:38:00 Friday ET

Allianz chairman Mohamed El-Erian bolsters a new American economic paradigm in lieu of the Washington consensus.

Allianz chairman Mohamed El-Erian bolsters a new American economic paradigm in lieu of the Washington consensus. The latter dominates the old school of thou

+See More

AT&T wins court approval to take over Time Warner with a trademark $85 billion bid despite the Trump prior dissent due to antitrust concerns.

Chanel Holden

2018-06-07 10:36:00 Thursday ET

AT&T wins court approval to take over Time Warner with a trademark $85 billion bid despite the Trump prior dissent due to antitrust concerns.

AT&T wins court approval to take over Time Warner with a trademark $85 billion bid despite the Trump administration prior dissent due to antitrust conce

+See More

The U.S. stock market delivers a hefty long-term average return of 11% per annum.

Peter Prince

2017-03-09 05:32:00 Thursday ET

The U.S. stock market delivers a hefty long-term average return of 11% per annum.

From 1927 to 2017, the U.S. stock market has delivered a hefty average return of about 11% per annum. The U.S. average stock market return is high in stark

+See More

The Chinese administration delivers a written response to U.S. demands for trade reforms.

Olivia London

2018-11-25 12:37:00 Sunday ET

The Chinese administration delivers a written response to U.S. demands for trade reforms.

The Chinese administration delivers a written response to U.S. demands for trade reforms. This strategic move helps trigger more formal negotiations between

+See More