Palantir files files for direct listing with an increase in technology IPOs
[ad_1]
(Bloomberg) – Palantir Technologies Inc., the data mining company backed by tech billionaire Peter Thiel, has broken years of suspense by filing a direct listing request.
The Denver-based company has applied to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol PLTR, according to its filing Tuesday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Palantir will not collect any proceeds from the listing and has no traditional underwriters. Unlike previous direct listings, however, investors will face restrictions on how much of their shares they can sell initially.
Like many tech companies that have moved into public procurement, Palantir has never been profitable. The company lost $ 580 million in 2019, although that loss narrowed in the first half of this year to $ 165 million, according to the filing. First half revenue increased 49% year over year to $ 481 million. The company said it plans to break even this year.
The founders of Palantir will control approximately half of the total voting rights. The company currently has two classes of shares and plans to add a third class with a varying number of votes. All shares in this new class will be held by a voting trust established by co-founders Alexander Karp, Stephen Cohen and Thiel.
Palantir joins a rush of companies that filed for IPO this week, including Unity Software Inc., Sumo Logic Inc., JFrog Inc. and Snowflake Inc., as well as several blank check entities.
The stock issuance has returned from an initial pandemic-induced lull with revenge. July, with nearly $ 19 billion in new listings, was the busiest month for IPOs in the United States since September 2014, when 36 companies went public to raise $ 33 billion, according to compiled data. by Bloomberg.
The rush to public procurement comes as the economic slowdown caused by the pandemic has led some companies to rethink their capital needs. Airbnb Inc., which was previously considered a direct listing candidate, said this month it has filed a traditional initial public offering request.
Instead of underwriters, Palantir has engaged investment banks as financial advisers, as it will not collect any proceeds from the listing. Morgan Stanley is the sole advisor to the designated Market Maker, which facilitates the opening trading of stocks and helps determine prices. Meanwhile, 11 other banks – including Credit Suisse Group AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Allen & Co. and Royal Bank of Canada – will also serve as advisers.
Named after the all-seeing stones used in JRR Tolkien’s fictional trilogy “The Lord of the Rings,” Palantir was co-founded in 2003 by Facebook Inc. board member Thiel. attention and financial support from In-Q-Tel, the venture capital investment arm of the US Central Intelligence Agency. The startup counted the CIA among its first clients and cultivated a reputation for secrecy early on.
Palantir’s technology allows users who own or have access to data to aggregate it into a central, easily searchable repository. U.S. government agencies, including the Department of Defense, Home Security, and the Internal Revenue Service, are clients, as are government agencies in Denmark, the United Kingdom, and a dozen other countries. .
For years, the company’s engineers have performed extensive data integrations and customizations of its technology at customer sites. This boutique approach kept Palantir private long after many of its peers went public, in part because the company didn’t want to risk being branded as a consulting firm instead of a software company, said. people familiar with Palantir.
A few years ago, the company created Foundry, software that automates once manual work, and laid the groundwork for Palantir to increase sales and build its very first sales team. Some 98% of Palantir customers now use Foundry, according to information shared with investors this year.
Palantir has been a lightning rod for critics in recent years, attracting the attention of data privacy advocates and sparking protests over how its technology has been used by the Immigration Customs Enforcement Agency and a handful of law enforcement agencies. . Thiel, who left left-wing Silicon Valley last year for Los Angeles, also faced protests related to his role as President of Palantir and for helping elect President Donald Trump in 2016. In his dossier, the company cited negative media coverage as a risk factor. . Another risk: the relatively small number of customers who represent a substantial part of the company’s turnover. Palantir’s top three customers together accounted for 28% of its revenue last year, the company said in the filing.
Palantir said it has 125 customers using its software in more than 150 countries, with an average revenue per customer of $ 5.6 million. and when. The company has asked its employees to work from home until the end of 2020.
(Add context from fourth paragraph.)
For more items like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com
Subscribe now to stay ahead of the curve with the most trusted source of business information.
© 2020 Bloomberg LP
[ad_2]