Spotify Files to Go Public on New York Stock Exchange
Streaming heavyweight will trade under “SPOT” ticker symbol
Sean Burch | February 28, 2018 @ 11:46 AM
Last Updated: February 28, 2018 @ 12:13 PM
Spotify
Spotify officially filed with the SEC on Wednesday to go public on the New York Stock Exchange.
Shares will trade under the “SPOT” ticker symbol. The Swedish music streaming giant is bypassing a more traditional initial public offering in favor of a direct listing — allowing the company to forgo using investment banks to sell new shares to investors. Without an underwriter, there is no set price on its shares when it goes public.
A direct listing holds a measure of added intrigue, though, as there is no “lock up” period barring early investors from selling their equity once Spotify is live on the NYSE.
Shares have traded between $90 and $132.50 on private markets, according to Spotify’s F-1 filing, pushing the company’s valuation to about $23 billion.
Spotify shared it had 71 million paying subscribers and 159 million monthly users at the end of 2017 — lapping its closest competitor, Apple Music, by about 120 million monthly listeners. The company added its paid subscribers increased 46 percent year-over-year.
“We set out to reimagine the music industry and to provide a better way for both artists and consumers to benefit from the digital transformation of the music industry,” said the company in its filing. “Our mission is to unlock the potential of human creativity by giving a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their art and billions of fans the opportunity to enjoy and be inspired by these creators.”
On the money side, Spotify reported revenue of $4.99 billion last year, increasing from $3.6 billion in 2016 and $2.37 billion in 2015. Since its launch 10 years ago, the company has paid more than €8 billion (about $9.75 billion) in royalties to artists, music labels, and publishers.
6 Tech Giants Shaking Up News, From Jeff Bezos to Laurene Powell Jobs (Photos)
Tech leaders are increasingly intertwined with the news business. While some want to support old properties, one set out to destroy a new one. Here they are.
Jeff Bezos – Washington Post
The Amazon founder purchased the Washington Post in 2013 for $250 million in cash. President Trump has called the paper the “Amazon Washington Post.”
The Facebook co-founder purchased The New Republic in 2012, becoming executive chairman and publisher. However, he sold the venerable political magazine to Win McCormack in 2016, saying he "underestimated the difficulty of transitioning an old and traditional institution into a digital media company in today’s quickly evolving climate."
The eBay founder is a well-known philanthropist who created First Look Media, a journalism venture behind The Intercept. Inspired by Edward Snowden's leaks. Omidyar teamed up with journalists Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras to launch the website “dedicated to the kind of reporting those disclosures required: fearless, adversarial journalism.”
The PayPal co-founder doesn’t own a news organization, but he makes this list because he essentially ended one -- Gawker -- proving once again the power of an angry billionaire. Thiel secretly bankrolled Hulk Hogan’s sex-tape lawsuit against Gawker Media because he was upset that the website once outed him as gay. Hogan won the defamation lawsuit against the site that sent its parent company into bankruptcy, and Gawker.com is no longer operating.
OK, so Facebook isn’t technically a news organization… yet. However, the company is preparing to launch its much-anticipated lineup of original content later this summer, and there are also signs that it's on the verge of becoming an even bigger media platform.
Campbell Brown, Head of News Partnerships at Facebook, confirmed last week it’s developing a subscription service for publishers willing to post articles directly to Facebook Instant Articles, rather than their native websites.
Tech is increasingly intertwined with news, for better or worse
Tech leaders are increasingly intertwined with the news business. While some want to support old properties, one set out to destroy a new one. Here they are.