Elon Musk’s SpaceX to file public IPO prospectus in the next couple of days

SpaceX is getting ready to publish its IPO prospectus within days, putting Elon Musk’s rocket and satellite company on the edge of a stock sale so large that Wall Street has no clean comparison for it.

The company filed its IPO papers privately in April with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and the public version may land as soon as next week. The listing is tied to a business now valued at about $1.25 trillion after SpaceX combined with xAI in February.

The investor roadshow of SpaceX is scheduled to begin on June 8, which will mark the time when the bankers begin marketing the business deal to major investors.

The public disclosure of the offering document needs to happen 15 days prior to the above date, however, SpaceX and its consultants wish to release it earlier so that the potential buyers have a chance to study the financials before they are pitched.

SpaceX targets a giant IPO while bankers look for buyers outside the usual Wall Street crowd

SpaceX has set its sights on raising between $70 billion and $75 billion via IPO, which would beat twice the amount raised by Saudi Aramco in its 2019 IPO, the largest public offering ever recorded.

However, The Wall Street Journal is estimating a broader range of $40 billion to $80 billion, at the bottom end of which will still constitute a huge figure, while at the top end SpaceX would be standing alone. Therefore, it’s no surprise that bankers are reaching out beyond the usual American investment funds that typically buy up stock.

Finding new ways of placing this unprecedented amount of stock during the IPO is the reason behind advisers investigating networks of brokers from countries like the United Kingdom, Japan, and Canada. This includes finding buyers that are likely to keep the stock in their portfolios for the long term since such a deal will require sustained buying interest rather than opportunistic ones.

Brookfield Corporation (BN) has already bought $2 billion of SpaceX shares before the IPO. Brookfield said about $1 billion of the position is held directly, while the rest is held by its affiliates. The firm bought the shares at the current pre-IPO price as it increases exposure to businesses that could benefit from fast AI adoption.

Pension chiefs tell Musk to drop control terms before SpaceX sells shares to the public

The IPO is also drawing pressure from major pension leaders over how much power Elon may keep after SpaceX becomes public. New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, New York City Comptroller Mark Levine, and California Public Employees’ Retirement System CEO Marcie Frost sent a letter to Elon on Wednesday about the planned governance setup.

Thomas, Mark, and Marcie represent three of the four largest public pension systems in the United States. They said they were worried about an “extreme” ownership and control structure that could reduce protections for regular shareholders. Their letter asked Elon to remove rules that would limit investor rights before SpaceX opens the listing to the public.

They wrote, “We are writing to express our serious concerns with the reported novel and extreme governance structure ‌and provisions SpaceX is planning to disclose in its registration statement.”

These issues involve alleged voting power, potential veto on the dismissal of Elon as CEO, liability protection for shareholders, and mandatory arbitration for shareholder disputes. Such a structure is precisely what pension fund managers despise since outside shareholders may face financial exposure while having minimal influence in negotiations.

The leaders of pension funds also highlighted Elon’s busy portfolio of firms. He manages Tesla (TSLA), X, xAI, The Boring Company, Neuralink, and SpaceX. The multi-year remuneration deals at SpaceX and Tesla were mentioned by the managers, which may make both entities “operate in a relatively unique position where they will be competing against each other for Elon’s time.”

Moreover, the managers stressed, “Long-term shareholders, in the present governance structure, will not have an independent board majority, a functioning derivative remedy, or even an effective mechanism for judicial review to address the inevitable conflicts of interest posed by such concentrated roles.”

Mark, Thomas, and Marcie had opposed previous cases of corporate governance issues at publicly traded firms, including Meta Platforms (META) and Tesla. In connection with this news, the SpaceX prospectus may release at the time of the company’s twelfth Starship test launch, which had planned for May 19.

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