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Roblox toys are on display at a toy fair in London.
Leon Neal / Getty Images
The New York Stock Exchange said Tuesday afternoon that the reference price for Roblox, which will be made public tomorrow, is $ 45 per share.
With about 652 million shares outstanding, the benchmark price indicates that Roblox’s market capitalization could reach $ 29.3 billion.
Roblox will be listed on the NYSE on Wednesday under the symbol RBLX. About 199 million shares of Roblox will go on the market, but, unlike the traditional IPO, the company does not raise new capital through the offer. Instead, holders will sell shares they already have.
The $ 45 reference price doesn’t mean Roblox shares will start trading here. Rather, it should be said to be a guide that informs the public of recent private business activity, according to a person familiar with the situation.
Direct listings aren’t new, but they’ve caught the eye lately. Roblox will be the fifth company to be made public using this method.
Palantir Technologies (ticker: PLTR), Asana (ASAN), Slack Technologies (WORK) and Spotify Technology (SPOT) used direct listings to make their debuts in the public equity market. Normally, companies do not raise capital through direct quotations, although in December, the Securities and Exchange Commission approved a rule change proposed by the NYSE that allows a company to do so.
Roblox will not receive any profit from shareholders selling their shares.
Goldman Sachs,
Morgan Stanley,
i
bank of america
they are advising Roblox on the deal.
When Spotify went public on the NYSE in 2018, its benchmark price was the level of the last private secondary trades. In the 2019 Slack list, the benchmark was closely informed by the volume-weighted average price of recent secondary business activity, but it was not the exact average, the person said.
Unlike the price range set by subscribers of a traditional IPO, usually a reasonable indicator of the offer price, the reference price is not particularly useful as an indicator of trading shares listed directly.
Both Palantir and Asana went public in September through direct lists. Palantir’s reference price was $ 7.25, but shares opened on September 30 at $ 10 and reached highs of $ 11.42 and closed at $ 9.50. While Asana’s reference price was $ 21, it opened at $ 27, peaked at $ 29.96, and ended at $ 28.80.
Founded in 2004, Roblox hosts child-friendly games focused on digital characters similar to Lego blocks. An average of 37.1 million people come to Roblox every day to play.
Roblox is not profitable. Losses expanded to $ 253.3 million in 2020, compared to $ 71 million in 2019. Revenue increased by about 82% to $ 923.9 million. David Baszucki, co-founder, president and CEO of Roblox, has 70.1% of the total voting power, according to the brochure.
Write to Louise Beltran at [email protected]