Spotify’s opening number seemed to be music to the market’s ears…at least at first.
The streaming company made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange Tuesday afternoon at more than $165 a pop, pegging its valuation at roughly $29.5 billion.
Over the course of the day, though, that price slipped to about $149, down about 12 percent from the highs of the day, but still well above the $132 a share reference price.
Spotify’s unconventional choice of a direct listing, instead of a traditional IPO, had investors and experts bracing for a roller-coaster ride on Tuesday.
“I thought we were going to see a lot of spikes up and down and up and down,” said Dan Primack, business reporter at Axios. But “it hasn’t been all over the place.”
This smoother-than-expected listing raises the question of whether more companies will follow in Spotify’s footsteps in the future.
“It’s not the right path for all,” Stacey Cunningham, COO of the New York Stock Exchange, told Cheddar before the stock started trading. “There are some unique factors for [Spotify].
“They don’t need to raise capital, so going through the IPO process isn’t something that was important to them.”
Spotify was much more interested in “providing that liquidity event for their shareholders...to have a currency...to do additional M&A deals going forward,” explained Cunningham.
So what’s in store for Spotify’s future?
Fam Mirza, one of the company’s earlier investors, told Cheddar he wouldn’t sell his shares in the listing, because he has faith in where the company is headed.
“They’re so amazing at entering new markets...They can still scale it, and then they get to those bottom line revenues.”
Mirza also doesn’t consider Apple, even as it gains ground in the space, as a real threat. After all, he pointed out, the tech giant has had plenty of opportunity to overtake it.
“Everybody has an iPhone. So as soon as Apple launched Apple Music...why hasn’t every single person who has an iPhone signed on to Apple Music?”
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/spotifys-unique-relationship-with-wall-street).
Former Take-Two CEO Kelly Sumner is looking for the next big game. But rather than investing hundreds of millions, his blockchain-based video game publisher Planet Digital Partners is targeting mid-level games often ignored by big publishers.
"Electronic Arts, Take-Two, Activision ($ATVI), etc., they are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a game, expecting to be ... getting billions. And the kind of middle, where there's sort of really good, exciting games, isn't there," Sumner told Cheddar Friday.
At Amazon's annual shareholder meeting this spring, a group of investors will be asking the tech giant to halt all governments sales of its proprietary facial recognition technology, known as Rekognition. The software, which scans faces and can read human emotions, tells the government "who we are, what we are, what we're doing, and who we're doing it with," said Michael Connor, the executive director of corporate accountability non-profit Open Mic.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk's email to employees on Friday announcing that the electric car maker will be slashing its workforce by 7 percent is just the latest in a long line of troubles for the embattled company ー troubles that brand and marketing expert Ian Wishingrad don't see ending any time soon.
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Microsoft President Brad Smith called for an end to the government shutdown during an appearance on Cheddar Thursday, saying that the political stalemate in the U.S. is contributing to broader international instability resulting from the ongoing Brexit chaos and weakness in the Chinese economy.
Inflated housing prices and long commute times in tech hubs nationwide is "sapping the vitality" from cities, Microsoft President Brad Smith told Cheddar Thursday following the company's announcement it would invest $500 million to address affordable housing and homelessness in and around Seattle, Wash.
TradeStation, the online broker-dealer, is dipping its toes into crypto. Speaking with Cheddar's Tanaya Macheel at the North American Bitcoin Conference in Miami on Thursday, CEO John Bartleman said crypto trading would be a "natural extension" to the asset classes currently offered on the TradeStation platform.
Abra, the crypto exchange and digital wallet startup, is trying to fundamentally change the way banking is done with a simple consumer-facing app that allows users to effectively create "synthetic" dollars using the inherent value of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Bill Barhydt, Abra's co-founder and CEO, explained the strategy to Cheddar's Tanaya Macheel at the North American Bitcoin Conference in Miami.
Ford Motor Company and Volkswagen AG announced at the Detroit Auto Show they will form a "broad alliance," but the reality of a partnership may present certain conflicts for both companies. "I think that this is going to be a very difficult friendship to make work because Ford ($F) is expected to make some pickup trucks for Volkswagen, which sounds good because Volkswagen needs those pickups in other markets," Nathan Bomey, business reporter at USA Today, told Cheddar Wednesday.
There is a scene in the 2002 sci-fi film "Minority Report" that has always struck me. John Anderton, the film's protagonist played by Tom Cruise, is running through a mall, bombarded by ads from premium brands like American Express and Lexus that are tailor-made just for him. I was always fascinated by that moment in the film ー because it seemed so far-fetched and dystopian, but at the same time, almost pre-ordained.
