Pinterest closes 28pc higher on NYSE debut
Pinterest Inc climbed as much as 33 per cent in its trading debut after raising US$1.4 billion (RM5.8 billion) in the year’s second-biggest United States initial public offering, pinning investor hopes on a continuing listing surge.
Shares of the digital-scrapbooking company opened at US$23.75. They closed up 28 per cent to US$24.40 in trading, here, on Thursday, giving the company a market value of about US$12.9 billion. The listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is second in the US this year only to Lyft Inc’s US$2.34 billion offering last month.
Pinterest’s strong showing, along with an even stronger firstday performance by Zoom Video Communications Inc on Thursday, signals continuing investor thirst for new stocks amid a surge of unicorns — startups valued at US$1 billion or more — coming to market.
Pinterest sold 75 million shares on Wednesday for US$19 each, after marketing them for US$15 to US$17.
At the offer price, the IPO valued the company at about US$12.8 billion, including restricted stock and options, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Pinterest’s last valuation was US$12.3 billion.
Pinterest operates in a crowded digital marketing space, where Google and Facebook Inc get the lion’s share of ad dollars.
“We’re really proud of the progress we made over the last few years,” said chief executive officer Ben Silbermann. “We built out the business. We felt like we were at a point where the business had reached a level of predictability that it could be in the public markets.”
Pinterest had a key advantage in competing for advertising dollars, said Silbermann. Unlike other sites, Pinterest users typically were looking to eventually buy what they were searching for, which lined up with what advertisers want, he said.
Pinterest said in its IPO filing that it reached more than 250 million monthly active users.
The company had about US$756 million in revenue from online advertisements last year, a 60 per cent growth rate that accelerated from the previous year. Its net loss shrunk to US$63 million last year from US$130 million in 2017.
Most of its user growth come from international markets, where the average revenue per user is much lower than in the US.