COVID-19 threw markets a curveball, but 2020 may yet meet some big IPO expectations.
1. Alibaba’s fintech arm Ant Group is planning a Hong Kong IPO this year that could value it at $200+ billion, Reuters reports. As the world’s most valuable tech unicorn, it’ll be one of 2020’s biggest debuts.
2. In the U.S., crypto exchange Coinbase is looking to go public in a direct listing, again per Reuters. With more than 35 million users and a 2018 valuation of $8 billion, Coinbase is the U.S.’ biggest exchange…but still needs SEC blessing before putting an opening bell ring on it.
- Coinbase has recently wriggled into mainstream finance: In February, Visa made Coinbase its first pure-play crypto principal member. And in May, JPMorgan took it on as a client.
3. Palantir Technologies said on Monday it confidentially filed paperwork to go public, which is the only way we’d expect Peter Thiel’s secretive big data company to do so. It boasts an estimated $26 billion valuation, but its data-mining practices and government contracts (particularly with immigration authorities) have elicited controversy in recent years.