Blog: IPO

The Wall Street Journal has reported that Roblox is delaying its IPO to 2021. WSJ states that “…company officials decided that the gravity-defying performance this week ofAirbnb andDoorDash made it too difficult to determine the right price for the videogame company’s shares”.

US-based sports betting company DraftKings’ stock value has grown 11% following a strong third-quarter performance in which its revenues increased 98% year on year (YoY) to reach $132.8 million, up from $67 million in Q3 2019.

Wanda Sports Group’s (WSG) Q2 financials highlight a significant decline in revenues on account of “the broad effects of COVID-19 mitigation efforts”. WSG reported a second successive quarter of decreasing revenues , following its disappointing Q1 results which saw a 26% year-on-year (YoY) decline attributed to losses within the Chinese company’s spectator sports and mass participation divisions.

DAZN, the anointed ‘Netflix of Sport’, has announced plans to resume launching its services globally via a beta service covering boxing bouts In July and August, for users who have registered their interest, free of charge, ahead of DAZN’s revamped imminent global rollout.

Arguably the most anticipated day in the history of digital music is upon us. By the end of it we will have the first hint at whether Spotify is going to fall at the Snap Inc. or Facebook end of the spectrum of promising tech IPO, or DPO in the case of Spotify.

With a fair wind, Spotify’s long-anticipated public offering should happen before the end of Q2 2018 (and yes, probably a direct listing rather than an IPO but 'IPO' worked better in the title!) . The music industry will be watching with keen interest as it is going to be the bellwether for the streaming music sector.

Western appetite for the Chinese market has long been based upon accessing the 1.4 billion consumers. This has in turn impacted valuations of Chinese companies, particularly when eager western investors are involved.

For much of 2016 it looked nailed on that Spotify would IPO in 2017 and that the recorded music industry would move onto its next chapter, for better or for worse. The terms of Spotify’s $1 billion debt raise (which mean that Spotify pays an extra 1% on its 5% annual interest payments every six months beyond its previously agreed IPO date) suggest that Spotify was thinking the same way too.

Hot on the heels of last week’s S-1 Initial Public Offering prospectus release by Snap Inc, the parent company of Snapchat, was this morning’s announcement that the US messaging service is partnering with BBC Worldwide, the international commercial arm of the BBC, to launch an exclusive series of Planet Earth II shows on Snapchat’s Discover platform in the US and Canada.

Snap Inc, the parent company of messaging app Snapchat, have hired Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley for a seemingly imminent IPO. In addition to being one of the first app generation unicorns (alongside Spotify and Uber) to go public, the company is doing so at a time when fellow social media giant Twitter is in the process of selling itself, having seemingly been stalled by acquisition discussions with Disney, Google and Salesforce.

Australian streaming music service Guvera has announced its long-anticipated IPO on Australia’s ASX exchange in July. Guvera has always been an intriguing component of the digital music landscape. On the surface it has been pioneering music streaming in emerging markets where the big western services have failed to make inroads.