Recap: The IPO Reckoning
After years of mostly tumbleweeds, the initial public offering market is about to enter one of its most exciting and potentially volatile eras. SpaceX—with a valuation expected to exceed $1 trillion—is widely anticipated to go public as soon as June, with companies like Anthropic and OpenAI potentially not far behind.
As a historic wave of supply hits the market, the mechanics that underpin public trading are about to be pressure-tested. To understand what comes next, Cory Weinberg, The Information’s deputy bureau chief of finance, sat down with three market insiders who sit at the center of the IPO process:
- Michael Harris, vice chair and global head of capital markets, NYSE Group
- Jon Redmond, portfolio manager, Discovery Capital
- Ashley MacNeill, managing director, co-head of capital markets, Vista Equity Partners
SpaceX: The Elephant in the Exchange
For portfolio managers like Jon Redmond, the appeal of SpaceX lies in its dominant position across multiple business lines, including Starlink and Starship.
“If we look three to five to 10 years out, it’s easy for our model to get very aggressive,” he said.
The size of the deal alone could reshape market dynamics. While IPOs typically undergo what NYSE Group’s Michael Harris describes as a “seasoning period” before hitting the index, providers are considering fast-tracking index inclusion to meet the immediate demand for the stock.
“The big question is: What happens after that inclusion period, and what’s the fundamental bid?” asked Harris. “You just really haven’t seen this in markets before, and it will have a large impact on the trading dynamics.”
Because of its deal size, even a single tranche of SpaceX shares could account for an unusually large share of daily trading volume. As Vista Equity Partners’ Ashley MacNeil put it, the scale of distribution is itself unprecedented.
“You’re going to be introducing almost 10% of what the U.S. market trades in one shot. That amount of volume is unprecedented,” she said. “Do we have the right systems in place to handle that?”
A Post-Fundamentals World
With SpaceX’s IPO filing not public yet—beyond isolated leaks reported by The Information and others—investors are currently focusing less on fundamentals and more on structure. MacNeill, for one, said she’s going to be taking a hard look at a number of outside factors to determine her stock strategy with the company, including IPO lockups, retail allocation, outstanding float and who’s selling shares.
“I plan to compare and contrast those to the underpinning of the business, because those will factor into my assessment of what success or failure looks like post-pricing,” she said. “The valuation is interesting but sort of irrelevant.”
For MacNeill, the appeal is less about current cash flows and more about long-term potential.
“What’s so exciting about this IPO is that it forces you to dream the dream as an equity investor,” she said. “The reason we haven’t gotten really salient points on valuation is because it’s really hard and depends on what part of the dream you’re dreaming.”
Life After IPO
While none of the panelists can predict with certainty what will happen once SpaceX launches, they can all agree on one thing: The launch will have an impact on the markets. The bigger question is what happens afterward.
“Usually when you see these very large IPOs, it sucks a bit of oxygen out of the room. It’s also typical to see a market sell-off, and my guess is it will probably be big tech led,” said Redmond. “I think the window from good growth companies is going to be hit.”
Longer term, the impact may be more structural. As AI companies face rising costs to build and scale, public markets could become less of an exit and more of a necessity.
“I think you’re going to see a lot more companies become public that maybe could have stayed private for longer,” said MacNeill.
Access to public capital—and the ability to use stock as acquisition currency—may ultimately prove to be a competitive advantage, not just a milestone.