5 key things to know about Reddit (RDDT) IPO

Reddit, the prominent social media platform, is setting its sights on a valuation of up to $6.4 billion, the company revealed on Monday. Here are five key things to know:

Things to Know About the Reddit IPO

1. RDDT’s IPO Date — Reddit is set to go public on the New York Stock Exchange on March 21, 2024, trading under the ticker symbol RDDT. Generally, shares that make their public stock market debuts start trading between 10 AM - 2 PM ET.

2. Shares Offered — Reddit is targeting the sale of approximately 22 million shares, with the company offering 15,276,527 shares and the selling stockholders offering 6,723,473 shares. Reddit has reserved 8% of the shares on offer for eligible users and moderators on its platform, as well as certain board members and friends and family members of its employees and directors.

3. Valuation — Reddit’s shares are set to be priced between $31 and $34 each, with the company aiming for a valuation of up to $6.4 billion. The valuation is less than the $10 billion the social media platform was valued at after a fundraising in 2021.

4. Raised Proceeds — Reddit expects to raise up to $748 million.

5. Underwriters — Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and BofA Securities will serve as lead underwriters.

Analyst Views on the Reddit IPO

Speaking to Investing.com on Tuesday, Alan Vaksman, founding partner of Launchbay Capital, noted that Reddit reserving some of its shares for users on the platform as a mechanism to build on a loyal customer base has been done before, citing Deliveroo in the UK as a recent example.

“This is also a scenario that was employed for a lot of the crypto ICOs, where communities were the main buyers of the released tokens with the premise of the distributed systems in mind,” said Vaksman. “Ultimately, whatever the offering, be it to the market as [a] whole or to the users first, the financial fundamentals remain key for it to be a successful investment. Yes, loyalty to the brand will mean additional vested interest for the users, but they’re unlikely to be willing to put their money into something that does not make sense financially in the long run.”

Looking ahead, Vaksman believes “we’re on the cusp of several tech IPOs in the very near future if we look at the secondary markets as an indicator.”

However, because of the risky nature of the offering, he doesn’t see the Reddit IPO having a major impact on the ecosystem as a whole.

“The secondary price for Reddit has been gradually declining over the past year and the volume of trades has been on the lower side,” notes Vaksman. “Hence, the valuation that the team is going for may well mean a risk of a drop in the price once it’s listed.”

Elsewhere, analysts at Bernstein said in a note Tuesday that Reddit has the “lowest engagement rate (DAUq/MAU) across our coverage at ~15%, while ‘logged-out’ users accounted for ~75% of the incremental users added since July 2023.”

The firm also questioned whether Reddit’s users will “defend RDDT to the moon?”

By Sam Boughedda

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