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

Former White House chief economic advisor Gary Cohn points out that there is no instant cure for the Sino-U.S. trade dilemma.

Rose Prince

2018-11-23 09:39:00 Friday ET

Former White House chief economic advisor Gary Cohn points out that there is no instant cure for the Sino-U.S. trade dilemma.

Former White House chief economic advisor Gary Cohn points out that there is no instant cure for the Sino-U.S. trade dilemma. After the U.S. midterm electio

+See More

AYA Analytica podcast provides fresh insights into the latest stock market news, economic trends, and investment portfolio strategies.

Andy Yeh Alpha

2018-11-30 12:42:00 Friday ET

AYA Analytica podcast provides fresh insights into the latest stock market news, economic trends, and investment portfolio strategies.

Andy Yeh Alpha (AYA) AYA Analytica financial health memo (FHM) podcast channel on YouTube November 2018 AYA Analytica is our online regular podcast and news

+See More

President Trump supports a bipartisan bill or the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act.

Charlene Vos

2018-07-21 13:35:00 Saturday ET

President Trump supports a bipartisan bill or the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act.

President Trump supports a bipartisan bill or the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (FIRRMA), which effectively broadens the jurisdiction of

+See More

Yale macro economist Stephen Roach draws 3 major conclusions with respect to the Chinese long-run view of the current tech trade conflict with America.

Joseph Corr

2019-09-05 09:26:00 Thursday ET

Yale macro economist Stephen Roach draws 3 major conclusions with respect to the Chinese long-run view of the current tech trade conflict with America.

Yale macro economist Stephen Roach draws 3 major conclusions with respect to the Chinese long-run view of the current tech trade conflict with America. Firs

+See More

Global debt surges to $250 trillion in the fiscal year 2019.

Olivia London

2019-12-28 09:36:00 Saturday ET

Global debt surges to $250 trillion in the fiscal year 2019.

Global debt surges to $250 trillion in the fiscal year 2019. The International Institute of Finance analytic report shows that both China and the U.S. accou

+See More

Joseph Stiglitz and Andrew Charlton suggest that free trade helps promote better economic development worldwide.

Monica McNeil

2023-07-21 10:30:00 Friday ET

Joseph Stiglitz and Andrew Charlton suggest that free trade helps promote better economic development worldwide.

Joseph Stiglitz and Andrew Charlton suggest that free trade helps promote better economic development worldwide. Joseph Stiglitz and Andrew Charlton (200

+See More