Wednesday, April 4, 2018

Spotify debuts on Wall Street with a $30 billion valuation | UNLIMITED | CMU

Spotify

So, Spotify is now SPOT on the New York Stock Exchange, having finally listed. And while the streaming firm’s boss Daniel Ek was keen to play down the significance of the listing, investors and music execs were nevertheless yesterday fully focused on how the firm faired during its first day on Wall Street.

Shares began trading at $165.90 each, considerably up on the pre-debut price of $132 per share. That valued the business in terms of market capitalisation at about $30 billion. The share price then moved up to $169, before spending the rest of the day slowly slipping so that it closed at $149.95.

While keeping at least one eye on how the streaming music shares trade over the week ahead, Wall Street types will also be debating whether Spotify’s unusual route to the stock exchange, via a so called direct listing rather than a traditional Initial Public Offering, was a clever approach or not.

Though in music circles, more attention will focus on if and when the record companies decide to sell the equity they acquired in Spotify as part of their original licensing deals. And if and when they do cash in, quite how the record labels will make good on past commitments to share the profits of that share sale with their artists.

Meanwhile, CMU’s investment wing also decided to get in on the action yesterday by buying up some stock. A whole share! We’re currently $5.22 down on the deal. What fun to be part of the streaming music adventure!

[from https://ift.tt/2lvivLP]

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