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).
Cheddar’s Alex Heath caught up with industry heavyweights at the 2018 Allen & Co. conference in Sun Valley, Idaho — an event commonly referred to "summer camp for billionaires." The hot merger landscape in the media industry was front-and-center, with Comcast and Disney fighting over the future of Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox empire.
The streaming service will use the fresh capital for "a bigger marketing push," says CEO Andrew McCollum. The company also launched on Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV on Tuesday in an attempt to bring the service in front of more users.
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The partnership benefits both companies as the scooter wars begin to heat up. Lime likely chose Uber over other ride-hailing companies because "Uber's got a much deeper geographic penetration, particularly internationally," says Dan Primack, business editor at Axios.
The company, in partnership with Servco Pacific, launched the app Hui on Tuesday in Honolulu, Hawaii, with plans to open in other locations internationally. Hui enables users to choose from a fleet of Toyota and Lexus cars to rent out by the hour or for the day.
The company's U.S. Chief Security Officer Andy Purdy says there is no evidence to back up the FCC's claims that Huawei is a national security threat. “There is no indication we’ve done any improper things on behalf of the Chinese government."
A study finds male political reporters in Washington, D.C., retweet other men more than women. “Men and women are operating in gender echo chambers in Washington on Twitter,” says Nikki Usher, the lead author of the study.
The Chinese smartphone giant couldn’t live up to the hype in its Hong Kong market debut, with shares down more than a percent. “Investors are really confused about whether to position this company as a hardware company or just a services company,” says Tarun Pathak, a telecom analyst at Counterpoint Research.
The platform aggregates top stories through high-profile curators, which increases the "chance of bringing in the best content that's obviously not fake," says CEO Ian Myers. NewsPicks is owned by a Japanese media company that also acquired Quartz last week.
Twitter suspended 70 million fake accounts in May and June, and some wonder if this will result in a decline in users in Q2. However, this could work in Twitter's favor because many of these accounts aren’t actual users and just end up distorting those numbers, says Matt Binder, tech reporter for Mashable.
