Snapchat parent Snap Inc has officially filed for the much-anticipated IPO with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).It intends to raise $3 billion through this offering and expects to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol 'SNAP' in March this year. Snap had previously filed for a confidential IPO with SEC under the Jobs Act, which allows companies with less than $1 billion in revenue to file confidentially.
Snap is expected to have a valuation between $20 billion to $25 billion, according to media reports, thereby making it potentially one of the largest initial public offering on US stock exchanges after Alibaba's blockbuster $25 billion IPO in September 2014.
Formerly known as Snapchat, Snap posted a net loss of $514.6 million net loss on revenues of $404 million for the year ending December 31, 2016, in comparison to $372.9 million loss on revenues of $58.7 million in 2015, the IPO filing disclosed.
Its daily active users grew to an average of 158 million at the end of December 2016, registering 48% growth year-on-year.
The company however noted in the filing that the growth in Daily Active Users was relatively flat in the latter part of the quarter ended September 30, 2016. This was just about a month after the launch of Snapchat's direct competitor Instagram Stories that recently claimed to reach 150 million daily active users.
Majority of Snapchat users are between 18-34 years old and an average Snapchat user spends about 20-30 minutes on a daily basis, Snap disclosed in the filing.
Founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy each currently own 22.4% stake in Snap, worth approximately $4 billion.
Spiegel will receive another 3% stake in the form of restricted stock units (RSUs) as the "CEO award" that will vest immediately upon the completing of the public offering and delivered in equal quarterly installments over 3 years, the company said in its IPO prospectus.
Also worth noting is that the new shareholders will not have any say in the operations of the company, since the stock being sold through this offering will have "no vote on matters submitted to our stockholders"
"Mr. Spiegel and Mr. Murphy, and potentially either one of them alone, have the ability to control the outcome of all matters submitted to our stockholders for approval" Snap said in its IPO prospectus.
0 comments:
Post a Comment