Initial public offerings (IPOs) may be one of the most exciting parts of the market, and with the broad markets shrugging off the coronavirus pandemic and stabilizing, more companies are coming public. In short, market conditions have been improving, leading more companies to jump in. 24/7 Wall St. has detailed some of the big names to watch that may be coming public ahead of the 2020 election.
Some of these companies already have formally filed their S-1 and equivalent forms with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Others have filed confidential data with the SEC for IPOs, and other so-called unicorn companies, those with private market valuations north of $1 billion, are all highly speculated to come public.
Stock market investors actually want to see more IPOs. Criticism that many companies are waiting too long to come public has been widespread. Some investors have bought into these companies on secondary private company exchanges as insiders, and prior backers have sold shares here and there. Granted, the pandemic has pushed many of these timelines back.
Here are some of the biggest and most exciting names that are looking to come public for the rest of the year.
Palantir Technologies reportedly has filed confidentially with the SEC for an IPO. The company has been one of the more secretive Palo Alto data analytics providers, and there are currently no published plans for the list of bankers, nor on the size of the offering and timing for an IPO. This has been one of the most speculated IPOs for several years, with unicorn valuations of up to $20 billion.
Palantir is a top private data analytics and data mining outfit that caters to government clients. The company has been around for more than a decade and was founded by Peter Thiel back in 2003.
Pershing Square Tontine Holdings is a blank check company that is looking to come public soon. The firm recently filed with the SEC and is offering 150 million units for $20 apiece. Each unit consists of one share of Class A common stock and one-ninth of a warrant. At this price, the offering is valued up to $3 billion. The company intends to list the common stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol PSTH.
This company basically will act as a subsidiary to Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management (PSCM), which is more or less acting as the sponsor. Obviously, the management team will be led by Ackman, who will work closely with the PSCM investment team and PSCM in general to pursue its goal as a blank check company. Currently, the goal is a little hazy, but once it comes public, more will be made clear.
Robinhood is another big name on this list. This online brokerage service primarily operates through its app. Although this company has only been making news in the past couple of years, it has been around since 2013. This online broker was one of the first to adopt a zero-fee trade policy for its customers, and only recently have the bigger online brokerage firms followed suit.
Robinhood recently received more financing for its business, putting its valuation over $8 billion. The company raised $373 million from private investors in 2019 and an additional $280 million more in May, leading to its $8.3 billion valuation.
Snowflake operates as a data warehousing cloud service provider and was founded in 2012. The company has enjoyed continued growth over the past year. Revenues were up 174%, employee count doubled to 1,400 and Snowflake quadrupled the number of new customers, bringing its total to about 2,400 at the end of 2019. Some are suggesting that this company’s valuation could reach over $20 billion by the time it comes public.
In the past, this company won the business of credit card giant Capital One. Despite major players like Amazon and Microsoft in the field, Capital One chose Snowflake, and so far the partnership appears to be working out. Snowflake has attracted some other big names as well, and CEO Frank Slootman says the company is taking more business from the major players in the cloud.
DoorDash has been one of the most popular companies during this pandemic as everyone wants food delivered. This company filed to come public back in February, but with the pandemic just taking off then, the company decided to push back the IPO. Last month, the company received another $400 million from private investors, which gives DoorDash a valuation of roughly $16 billion.
Despite this premium valuation and highly demanded service, the company is still losing money. In 2019, DoorDash had revenues of $900 million but still lost $450 million. There have been problems in this industry in particular finding margin. Uber Eats is looking to solve this problem by acquiring Postmates.
Thank you for reading! Have some feedback for us?
Contact the 24/7 Wall St. editorial team.
Latest from 24/7
