Wall Street is preparing today to witness an event of historic importance: the official debut of Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) on the price list Nasdaq.
Under the ticker SPCX, the aerospace company led by Elon Musk kicks off public trading by concluding the largest Initial Public Offering (IPO) in the history of global markets, significantly surpassing the previous record set by the oil giant Saudi Aramco in 2019 (on that occasion the placement allowed a raising of 29 billion).
At the same time, Borsa Italiana confirmed the admission of the shares also on the Euronext GEM market (Euronext Global Equity Market) to facilitate European trading.
The key numbers of the placement
The final financial details, which emerged after the close of the American stock exchanges last night, outline an operation of unprecedented proportions:
- Placement price: Fixed to $135 per share. SpaceX has broken traditional conventions by giving up an indicative price range to aim directly for a fixed figure.
- Capital raised: The company placed 555,555,555 shares of Class A common stock, raising 75 billion dollars. There is also an overalllocation option (greenshoe) which could add up to an additional 83.3 million shares.
- Market valuation: With this starting price, SpaceX’s implied market capitalization stands at well $1.77 trillion (approximately 1,770 billion), positioning itself from day one as the sixth most capitalized company in America.
- Governance: Elon Musk remains firmly in control of the company with the 42% of the share capital and well84.2% of voting rights totals through a dual share class structure.
Boom in demand: orders 4 times the offer
According to what leaked from the operating rooms and the main financial press organs (including Reuters and Bloomberg), the bookbuilding phase (collection of orders) – which ended a few hours earlier than usual – recorded a real assault by investors.
The rumors speak of one request overall it has exceeded 250 billion of dollars The offer therefore resulted overwritten between 3.5 and 4 times compared to the 75 billion requested by the company.
This huge imbalance between supply and demand promises to trigger strong bullish pressure from the first minutes of trading on the secondary market. But there are also those who believe that investors aim to quickly monetize the investment and that this could generate downward pressure if no one comes to the market to buy.
Also fueling the institutional slowdown is the so-called shortage of free float: only around 4.3% of the total shares were actually distributed on the public market, while the rest remains protected by insider lock-up restrictions.
