Spotify is one step closer to going public. The music streaming company has reportedly filed confidential papers for its direct listing. Cheddar spoke with Axios business editor Dan Primack, who broke the story. He says the “direct listing” could mean the offering is different from what we saw from high-profile IPOs like Snap last year. “This will be a much slower sort of offering, this isn’t the situation where you should be expecting a massive pop necessarily,” he said. “It’s the sort of thing where insiders will be allowed to sell whenever they want to sell. You won’t be having the traditional lockups on early employees...Chances are [Spotify has] done deals ahead of time with some big mutual funds.” Spotify will list shares directly at the New York Stock Exchange, bypassing the traditional IPO process and avoiding underwriting fees. Primack, though, says several banks will still be involved. The documents were filed at the end of last month, but the news comes after separate reports that Spotify also faces a $1.6 billion copyright lawsuit. The music publisher that controls licenses to thousands of songs from artists such as Tom Petty, The Doors, and Neil Young, claims Spotify doesn’t have rights to distribute the content. How that lawsuit plays out could be one of the risks looming over the company’s listing. “All indications are that they want to go [public] in Q1,” Primack said. “It’s unclear how the lawsuit is going to play into it, but that’s the plan right now. This thing should be out by the end of March.” For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/spotify-enters-2018-with-a-bang).
