Nasdaq is poised to beat the New York Stock Exchange in IPOs for the first time since Facebook's disastrous 2012 offering
- The Nasdaq exchange is positioned to raise more funds through initial public offerings than the New York Stock Exchange for the first time since it botched Facebook's debut in 2012, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
- Nasdaq-listed IPOs raised roughly $32.4 billion in the year-to-date, trouncing NYSE's $26.2 billion sum, according to The Journal.
- The younger exchange also hosted more than three times the debuts this year, executing 154 IPOs versus NYSE's 47.
- Nasdaq's win signals a recovery from 2012, when technical glitches plagued Facebook's $16 billion IPO. The exchange was forced to pay out tens of millions in settlement fees to regulatory agencies and traders.
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The Nasdaq exchange is on pace to raise more funds in initial public offerings than the New York Stock Exchange for the first time since it botched Facebook's debut in 2012, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.
Nasdaq-listed IPOs have raised roughly $32.4 billion in the year-to-date, edging out NYSE's $26.2 billion sum. The younger exchange also hosted more than three times the deals in 2019, coordinating 154 IPOs versus NYSE's 47 total deals.
Yet Intercontinental Exchange-owned NYSE says it raised more capital for its companies than Nasdaq, according to The Journal. The figure includes follow-up offerings for companies already listed and the listing of closed-end funds.
The legacy exchange has raised "over $100 billion in IPOs and follow-on offerings" in 2019, NYSE vice chairman John Tuttle told The Journal.
NYSE hosted the two biggest debuts of the year, with Uber and Avantor raising $8.1 billion and $3.3 billion, respectively. Nasdaq hosted the third-place IPO, Lyft, which raised $2.6 billion. It's also scheduled to host Brazilian brokerage XP Inc.'s public debut, with the firm looking to take in $2.1 billion in the deal.
Nasdaq's win marks a recovery from 2012, when it fumbled Facebook's $16 billion IPO. The exchange was plagued with technical bugs that left investors in the dark on whether their trades were executed. Nasdaq paid out tens of millions in settlements to regulators and traders who claimed the glitches drove losses.
The gaffe hurt Nasdaq's reputation as a dependable IPO host and scuttled opportunities for mega-deals like Alibaba's $25 billion IPO, the exchange's former CEO Robert Greifeld wrote in a memoir.
Nasdaq lost the 2014 Alibaba deal because of "pressure from the banks and IPO underwriters" that pushed firms to NYSE "'just to be safe,'" Greifeld wrote in the book "Market Mover: Lessons From a Decade of Change at Nasdaq," released in October.
The Facebook debacle is now largely forgotten among firms planning their own IPOs, Issuer Network CEO Patrick Healy told The Journal. The company helps private firms decide which exchanges to choose for going public.
"The Facebook cloud is gone," he said. "It took a very long time."
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