StubHub Falls A Bit In First-Day Trading

Shares of StubHub fell some in first-day trading Wednesday, indicating modest but not red-hot investor demand for the long-awaited debut.

StubHub, which operates a marketplace for tickets to live events, had priced shares for its offering at $23.50 each late Tuesday, right in the middle of the projected range. Shares closed down 6% at $22.

The offering raised $800 million for the company, whose shares are trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker STUB. It set an initial valuation of around $8.5 billion.

The offering has been a long-time coming for New York-based StubHub, which was founded back in 2000 with the aim of offering a centralized marketplace for reselling tickets. The startup later caught the attention of eBay, which acquired it in 2007.

In 2019, the business sold for $4.05 billion to Viagogo, a ticket marketplace founded by StubHub co-founder Erik Baker, who was ousted from the latter in 2004. The tie-up included backing from Madrone Capital Partners, WestCap and Bessemer Venture Partners, which respectively own 25%, 12% and 9% of Class A shares in StubHub.

The IPO follows a period of modest sales growth for StubHub, which reported revenue of $828 million in the first half of this year — up about 3% from a year ago. The company posted a net loss of $76 million for the first half of the year, up from $24 million in the year-earlier period.

StubHub initially filed to go public in March but delayed its debut amid a market downturn that commenced shortly afterward. IPO activity has subsequently picked up again, with StubHub one of several larger recent debuts, including well-received entries last week by consumer fintech Klarna and blockchain lender Figure. Concurrently, we’re also seeing heightened buzz around potential new market entrants.

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Illustration: Dom Guzman