It is getting to be that time when we look back at 2019, which you may recall was supposed to be a banner year for tech IPOs. It’s fallen short of expectations on multiple fronts from the number of deals (well below last year) to how they are performing. We’ll have more to say on that in the coming weeks.
A few weeks ago, I sat down with Morgan Stanley’s Colin Stewart to look back and ahead. Stewart is vice chairman and global head of technology equity capital markets for Morgan Stanley. He and his colleague Michael Grimes have a long history in tech IPOs, from leading Google’s dutch auction IPO—Stewart wrote the software—to the Facebook IPO to Zoom’s public offering. Morgan Stanley also played a leading role in the Spotify and Slack direct listings, along with Goldman Sachs.
