Spotify Is Said to Be Going Public in Early 2018
- 6 years ago
Spotify Is Said to Be Going Public in Early 2018
The streaming music giant filed a confidential registration with the Securities
and Exchange Commission in late December, with the intention of listing its shares on the New York Stock Exchange in the first quarter of this year, according to two people briefed on the company’s plans who were not authorized to discuss them.
Last year, 138 companies — including well-known ones like Snap Inc., the parent of Snapchat
— went public, up 45 percent from 2016, according to data from Thomson Reuters.
As expected, Spotify will pursue a direct listing of its shares, an unusual process in which no new stock is issued — and therefore no money is raised —
but existing investors and insiders can trade their shares on the open market.
The move, if it goes forward as planned, would be the most prominent music-related listing since Pandora Media’s initial public offering in 2011,
and would recognize Spotify, which began its service 10 years ago, as a transformative force in the music industry.
A prospectus from Spotify, expected to be made public before the listing, would shine additional
light on the company’s finances and on the economics underlying streaming music
According to BuzzAngle, another music data tracker, American listeners streamed 377 billion songs last year, up 50 percent from 2016.
In the United States, streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music
and Amazon Music account for more than two-thirds of the business, according to Nielsen, and are still growing rapidly.
The streaming music giant filed a confidential registration with the Securities
and Exchange Commission in late December, with the intention of listing its shares on the New York Stock Exchange in the first quarter of this year, according to two people briefed on the company’s plans who were not authorized to discuss them.
Last year, 138 companies — including well-known ones like Snap Inc., the parent of Snapchat
— went public, up 45 percent from 2016, according to data from Thomson Reuters.
As expected, Spotify will pursue a direct listing of its shares, an unusual process in which no new stock is issued — and therefore no money is raised —
but existing investors and insiders can trade their shares on the open market.
The move, if it goes forward as planned, would be the most prominent music-related listing since Pandora Media’s initial public offering in 2011,
and would recognize Spotify, which began its service 10 years ago, as a transformative force in the music industry.
A prospectus from Spotify, expected to be made public before the listing, would shine additional
light on the company’s finances and on the economics underlying streaming music
According to BuzzAngle, another music data tracker, American listeners streamed 377 billion songs last year, up 50 percent from 2016.
In the United States, streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music
and Amazon Music account for more than two-thirds of the business, according to Nielsen, and are still growing rapidly.