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 approves Berkshire Hathaway to implement new meaningful stock repurchases.

Dan Rochefort

2018-11-15 12:35:00 Thursday ET

Warren Buffett approves Berkshire Hathaway to implement new meaningful stock repurchases.

Warren Buffett approves Berkshire Hathaway to implement new meaningful stock repurchases. Buffett sends a positive signal to the stock market with the Berks

+See More

The unique controversial management style of Steve Jobs helps translate his business acumen into smart product development.

Dan Rochefort

2020-03-26 10:31:00 Thursday ET

The unique controversial management style of Steve Jobs helps translate his business acumen into smart product development.

The unique controversial management style of Steve Jobs helps translate his business acumen into smart product development. Jay Elliot (2012) Leading

+See More

Millennials can save to make a fortune with compound interest over 40 years.

Laura Hermes

2017-07-25 10:44:00 Tuesday ET

Millennials can save to make a fortune with compound interest over 40 years.

NerdWallet's new simulation suggests that a 25-year-old millennial who earns an inflation-free base salary of $40,456 and saves 15% each year faces a 99

+See More

Harvard macrofinance professor Robert Barro sees no good reasons for the recent sudden reversal of U.S. monetary policy normalization.

Laura Hermes

2019-09-09 20:38:00 Monday ET

Harvard macrofinance professor Robert Barro sees no good reasons for the recent sudden reversal of U.S. monetary policy normalization.

Harvard macrofinance professor Robert Barro sees no good reasons for the recent sudden reversal of U.S. monetary policy normalization. As Federal Reserve Ch

+See More

President Trump warns Google, Facebook, and Twitter that these tech titans now tread on troublesome territory.

Daphne Basel

2018-08-25 12:33:00 Saturday ET

President Trump warns Google, Facebook, and Twitter that these tech titans now tread on troublesome territory.

President Trump warns Google, Facebook, and Twitter that these tech titans now tread on troublesome territory. Specifically, Trump accuses Google of rigging

+See More

Artificial intelligence, 5G, and virtual reality can help transform global trade, finance, and technology.

Peter Prince

2021-05-20 10:30:00 Thursday ET

Artificial intelligence, 5G, and virtual reality can help transform global trade, finance, and technology.

Artificial intelligence, 5G, and virtual reality can help transform global trade, finance, and technology. Core trade technological advances and disruptive

+See More