Palantir Technologies (NYSE: PLTR) started trading Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange via a direct listing and got a valuation of approximately $21B, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The company’s stock closed at $9.50 per share, which is 31 percent higher than the reference price of $7.25 apiece set by NYSE.
Under direct listings, stockholders and employees can offer some or all of their shares on the stock exchange and cash out immediately without the lockup period of 180 days in traditional initial public offerings. The approach allows the company to save on fees since it does not involve working with an investment bank to serve as an underwriter.
Palantir selected Citadel Securities and Morgan Stanley as its market maker and lead financial adviser, respectively, in its trading debut, and allowed existing stockholders to list 20 percent of their shares until early 2021 as part of measures to regulate the supply of stock.
Palantir, which filed to go public in August through a direct listing, is a big data analytics company co-founded by CEO Alex Karp, President Stephen Cohen and tech billionaire Peter Thiel in 2003.
