After raising record $75B in IPO, Elon Musk’s SpaceX pops 20% in trading debut
Updated with morning trading:
Shares of Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. jumped 20% over their $135 asking price Friday morning after one of the most hotly anticipated initial public stock offerings in living memory.
The rocket company, now valued at about $2 trillion, sold 555.6 million shares at that price Thursday, netting it a staggering $75 billion. Underwriters have the option to buy an additional 83.33 million shares at the IPO price in the next few days, amounting to an additional $11.2 billion. The sale leaves Musk with 82.4% of the company’s total voting power through his ownership of 5.22 billion Class B shares.
Normally in IPOs, share issuers will offer a price range that enables companies to gauge the level of demand from investors, but SpaceX took a different approach, holding a series of meetings with prospective investors leading up to its roadshow launch. Goldman Sachs served as the lead banker in the sale, followed by Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Bank of America.
