Roblox Corp. RBLX,
It hit a reference price of $ 45 a share on the New York Stock Exchange Tuesday night, as the teen-focused gaming platform prepares to go public via direct listing on Wednesday.
On the NYSE website, the exchange said that the company’s shares will begin trading under the ticker symbol “RBLX” on Wednesday, adding that the reference price is not an offer price, which will be determined by the buy and sell orders collected from stock brokers.
Read: Roblox Goes Public: 5 Things You Need To Know About The Tweens-Centric Gaming Platform
Direct listings differ from initial public offerings because they are not backed by insurers, as current stakeholders convert their ownership to shares based on trading prices on private markets. The company switched to plans for a direct listing from a planned initial public offering in January after getting a fresh injection of venture capital of $ 520 million that valued the company at $ 29.5 billion.
Roblox reported revenue of $ 923.9 million and a loss of $ 257.7 million in 2020, compared to revenue of $ 508.4 million in revenue and a loss of $ 71 million in 2019, and revenue of $ 325 million and a loss of $ 88.1 million. in 2018. grow your business by retaining your pre-teen users as they age, while also attracting new users who are already teens or young adults.
In its latest filing, Roblox said that nearly 199 million Class A shares have been registered for resale, for a total of approximately 388.2 million available. Roblox’s public debut has been anticipated since news of an initial public offering began circulating in October.
The last 12 months have been kind to publicly traded companies. The Renaissance IPO ETF IPO,
has risen nearly 130%, while the S&P 500 SPX Index,
is up 41% and the high-tech Nasdaq Composite Index COMP
it has gained 64%.
More and more companies are betting on direct listing, such as Spotify Technology SA SPOT,
Asana Inc. ASAN,
and Palantir Technologies Inc. PLTR,
Grocery delivery company Instacart is reportedly considering the direct listing route, while Coinbase Global Inc. has already announced its intentions.