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High-profile technology companies want your money — they just don’t want ‘anything else’ to do with you.
Snap Inc., the high-profile company behind messaging service SnapChat, wants to retain management control (subscription-needed) by not allowing voting power to those buying shares in its rumored 1Q 2017 IPO.
Silicon Valley is re-writing the rules, again.
Technology companies that have been told they are so good and those with bloated valuations, not to say that Snap isn’t properly valued in its latest round of funding, seem to be trying to protect themselves from public markets. Yes, “going public” is a long, tedious and draining process. Staying private allows companies to keep secrets in-house and increased flexibility overall. As a private company, you don’t have to open the books, listen to shareholders or worry about a 3-5% move on the price of your stock based on a Trump tweet — or any other outside factor.
It’s very understandable that technology companies want to insulate from a potential shareholder revolt or the ability to lose board seats to an activist investor. But if Snap, or any other company wants to ‘play-the-game’ and be a publicly traded company, we think they should play by the rules and allow proper voting power, as its been in the past, to all investors who put up capital in belief of the company.
While Snap is a unicorn that is likely to go public, it won’t be the only one in 2017. Forbes projects many others to test the IPO waters but one that will not be going public is cloud-software company Simplivity–which was purchased by HP Enterprises for $650 million on Tuesday. Interesting to note, Simplivity received a round of funding in March 2015 that valued the company at $1bn.
Speaking of $1bn valuations, Chuck E. Cheese has begun initial preparations for an IPO that could value the company at $1bn. Private Equity owner Apollo Global Management has reportedly initiated conversations with banks, according to Reuters.
Did you know they sell alcohol at Chuck E. Cheese?
Count me in.
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