Square, Match Group Soar in Market Debut Despite Dismal Initial PricingIt marks a relatively hopeful sign in a chilly IPO climate.
ByGeoff Weiss•
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In a relatively hopeful sign for other unicorns in this chilly IPO climate, both Square and the Match Group posted stellar debuts on their first day of trading despite initially pricing shares at the lower end of their respective ranges yesterday evening.
Square sharestouched a high of $14.78today and closed at $13.07 -- a 45 percent increase over its $9 IPO price. That values the payments company, one of the biggest to go public in recent months, at $4.2 billion -- still below its highest private valuation of$6 billionlast October.
Riding this wave, perhaps, Match shares hit a high of $14.89 and closed at $14.74 -- a 23 percent increase over its initial pricing of $12. This values the parent company of dating services Tinder, OkCupid and Match.com at $3.5 billion.
Six-year-old Square has been a game-changer for small-business owners the world over in developing software and hardware that allows users to conduct credit card transactions with mobile devices. The company has since expanded with other offers, including aloan programandpayroll product-- though it is still unprofitable.
Related:It's Time for Sean Rad to Leave Tinder. For Good.
Recently, concerns have swirled around co-founder and chief executive Jack Dorsey, who was reinstated as CEO of Twitter, which he also co-founded. In addition to questioning the time crunch of running two massive public companies concurrently, analysts and investors have alsoexpressed concern about a conflict of interestgiven that ecommerce will likely be crucial to the future of both companies.
Controversy surrounding leadership has plagued the Match Group in recent days as well. On the eve of its IPO, theLondon Evening Standardpublished a profile of Tinder CEO Sean Rad in which heruminated about sodomy and made veiled threats at reporterswho have covered the company unfavorably. The comments were so incendiary that the Match Group made a last-minuteSEC filingto note that "Rad is not a director or executive officer of the Company and was not authorized to make statements on behalf of the Company for purposes of the article."
Unlike Square, however, Match is already profitable.
Despite both companies' soaring debuts, the fact that initial pricing plummeted so low may be a warning sign for fellow unicorns eyeing an IPO. Other recent offerings in the tech space have faltered after their debuts, including, perhaps most notably,BoxandEtsy.
Related:10 Companies That Are Probably Going Public in the Next Year
