Demand surges for SpaceX's record-setting IPO as orders top $10 billion

Banks leading the offering by SpaceX are expected to stop taking orders from institutional investors on Wednesday after the market closes in New York at 4 pm

By Anthony Hughes and Bailey Lipschultz

 

SpaceX’s initial public offering is well oversubscribed with multiple institutional investors placing orders for about $10 billion or more of shares, according to people familiar with the matter, as demand builds for a potentially record-setting debut.

 

Banks leading the offering by Elon Musk’s rocket, satellite and artificial intelligence company are expected to stop taking orders from institutional investors on Wednesday after the market closes in New York at 4 pm, some of the people said, asking not to be identified as the information isn’t public. 

 

Closing the order books gives banks time to gauge demand ahead of the listing and advise the company on pricing. SpaceX’s IPO is set to price June 11 and trade the following day. The company is offering 555.6 million shares at a fixed price of $135 each, which would raise about $75 billion, and value it at about $1.8 trillion.

 

 

Retail investors can still submit orders for SpaceX shares on some platforms beyond the Wednesday deadline. The company is allocating as much as 30 per cent of the offering to retail, Bloomberg News has reported.

 

On Tuesday, Morgan Stanley is hosting about 300 institutional investors at the bank’s New York headquarters for meetings with SpaceX management including President Gwynne Shotwell and Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen, a person familiar with the plans said. The event will be hosted by the bank’s co-president Dan Simkowitz, said the person, who asked not to be named discussing private meetings.

 

A spokesperson for SpaceX didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Representatives for Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley declined to comment.

 

Anticipation is growing for the IPO which is expected to be the biggest ever, topping Saudi Aramco’s $29.4 billion debut in 2019. The company has disclosed new sources of revenue in recent weeks, emphasizing its AI clout. On Friday, SpaceX announced a deal with Alphabet Inc.’s Google that would see the Gemini AI model maker pay $920 million a month as part of a cloud services agreement set to run through 2029. It previously disclosed a similar pact with Anthropic PBC.

 

The company formally known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp. will trade on Nasdaq and Nasdaq Texas under the symbol SPCX.