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

Several business founders and entrepreneurs take low risks with high potential rewards to buck the conventional wisdom.

Chanel Holden

2020-06-24 09:32:00 Wednesday ET

Several business founders and entrepreneurs take low risks with high potential rewards to buck the conventional wisdom.

Several business founders and entrepreneurs take low risks with high potential rewards to buck the conventional wisdom. Renee Martin and Don Martin (2010

+See More

Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase establish a new company to reduce U.S. employee health care costs.

Joseph Corr

2018-01-23 06:38:00 Tuesday ET

Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase establish a new company to reduce U.S. employee health care costs.

Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase establish a new company to reduce U.S. employee health care costs in negotiations with drugmakers, doctors, a

+See More

Chicago financial economist Raghuram Rajan views communities as the third pillar of liberal democracy.

Jonah Whanau

2019-02-25 12:41:00 Monday ET

Chicago financial economist Raghuram Rajan views communities as the third pillar of liberal democracy.

Chicago financial economist Raghuram Rajan views communities as the third pillar of liberal democracy in addition to open markets and states. Rajan suggests

+See More

After its iPhone X launch, Apple reports its highest quarterly revenue over $80 billion in the tech titan's 41-year history.

Amy Hamilton

2018-01-25 08:32:00 Thursday ET

After its iPhone X launch, Apple reports its highest quarterly revenue over $80 billion in the tech titan's 41-year history.

After its flagship iPhone X launch, Apple reports its highest quarterly sales revenue over $80 billion in the tech titan's 41-year history. Apple expect

+See More

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink suggests that corporations should make a positive contribution to society apart from boosting the bottomline.

Olivia London

2018-01-09 08:33:00 Tuesday ET

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink suggests that corporations should make a positive contribution to society apart from boosting the bottomline.

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink emphasizes his key conviction that public corporations should make a positive contribution to society apart from boosting the botto

+See More

President Trump sounds smart when he comes up with a fresh plan to retire $15 trillion national debt.

Peter Prince

2018-08-07 07:33:00 Tuesday ET

President Trump sounds smart when he comes up with a fresh plan to retire $15 trillion national debt.

President Trump sounds smart when he comes up with a fresh plan to retire $15 trillion national debt. This plan entails taxing American consumers and produc

+See More