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

Most lean enterprises should facilitate the dual transformation of both core assets with steady cash flows and new growth options.

John Fourier

2020-06-10 10:35:00 Wednesday ET

Most lean enterprises should facilitate the dual transformation of both core assets with steady cash flows and new growth options.

Most lean enterprises should facilitate the dual transformation of both core assets with fresh cash flows and new growth options. Scott Anthony, Clark Gi

+See More

Stanford computer science overlords Larry Page and Sergey Brin design Google as an Internet search company.

Charlene Vos

2020-03-05 08:28:00 Thursday ET

Stanford computer science overlords Larry Page and Sergey Brin design Google as an Internet search company.

The Stanford computer science overlords Larry Page and Sergey Brin design and develop Google as an Internet search company. Janet Lowe (2009) Google s

+See More

Corporate ownership governance theory and practice

Monica McNeil

2022-04-25 10:34:00 Monday ET

Corporate ownership governance theory and practice

Corporate ownership governance theory and practice  The genesis of modern corporate governance and ownership studies traces back to the seminal work

+See More

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

Amy Hamilton

2019-04-30 19:46:00 Tuesday ET

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

AYA Analytica finbuzz podcast channel on YouTube April 2019 In this podcast, we discuss several topical issues as of April 2019: (1) Our proprietary

+See More

Top tech firms such as Google, Intel, and Qualcomm suspend Android services to HuaWei as the Trump administration blacklists the Chinese company.

Jonah Whanau

2019-06-01 10:33:00 Saturday ET

Top tech firms such as Google, Intel, and Qualcomm suspend Android services to HuaWei as the Trump administration blacklists the Chinese company.

Top tech firms such as Google, Intel, and Qualcomm suspend Android services to HuaWei as the Trump administration blacklists the Chinese company. HuaWei can

+See More

Can the Chinese renminbi become the next dual global reserve currency in addition to the American dollar?

Daphne Basel

2020-08-01 07:28:00 Saturday ET

Can the Chinese renminbi become the next dual global reserve currency in addition to the American dollar?

Technological advances, geopolitical risks, and pandemic outbreaks cannot shake investor confidence in the American dollar as the global reserve currency.

+See More