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

Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Robert Kaplan expects the U.S. economy to grow at 2.2%-2.5% in 2019-2020.

Becky Berkman

2019-06-11 12:33:00 Tuesday ET

Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Robert Kaplan expects the U.S. economy to grow at 2.2%-2.5% in 2019-2020.

Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Robert Kaplan expects the U.S. economy to grow at 2.2%-2.5% in 2019-2020 as inflation rises a bit. In an interview wit

+See More

President Trump delivers his second state-of-the-union address to U.S. Congress.

Olivia London

2019-02-06 10:36:49 Wednesday ET

President Trump delivers his second state-of-the-union address to U.S. Congress.

President Trump delivers his second state-of-the-union address to U.S. Congress. Several key themes emerge from this presidential address. First, President

+See More

Personal finance author William Danko shares 3 top secrets for better wealth creation.

Rose Prince

2018-12-01 11:37:00 Saturday ET

Personal finance author William Danko shares 3 top secrets for better wealth creation.

As the solo author of the books Millionaire Next Door and Richer Than Millionaire, William Danko shares 3 top secrets for *better wealth creation*. True pro

+See More

America and China play the game of chicken over trade and technology.

John Fourier

2018-05-01 11:38:00 Tuesday ET

America and China play the game of chicken over trade and technology.

America and China play the game of chicken over trade and technology, whereas, most market observers and economic media commentators hope the Trump team to

+See More

AYA finbuzz podcast offers fresh insights into the latest stock market topics, economic trends, and personal finance inspirations as of November 2019.

Daphne Basel

2019-11-26 11:30:00 Tuesday ET

AYA finbuzz podcast offers fresh insights into the latest stock market topics, economic trends, and personal finance inspirations as of November 2019.

AYA Analytica finbuzz podcast channel on YouTube November 2019 In this podcast, we discuss several topical issues as of November 2019: (1) The Trump adm

+See More

Bank of England publishes its latest insights into the economic impact of Brexit on British real productivity, capital investment, and labor supply.

Olivia London

2018-12-03 10:40:00 Monday ET

Bank of England publishes its latest insights into the economic impact of Brexit on British real productivity, capital investment, and labor supply.

Bank of England publishes its latest insights into the economic impact of Brexit on British real productivity, capital investment, and labor supply as of 20

+See More