AOL owner debuts with $25.2 billion market cap
Bending Spoons priced 58 million shares at $29 each in its initial public offering Wednesday, according to the company. The offering raised $1 billion for the company, with the remaining proceeds going to existing shareholders selling their stakes.
The stock opened for trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “BSP” and closed up 39.7% from the IPO price, lifting the company’s market capitalization to $25.2 billion.
The company’s holdings include the event creation and ticketing service Eventbrite, the video hosting platform Vimeo, and the email and search service AOL, which Bending Spoons acquired more recently. AOL, originally America Online, dates back to the early days of the internet.
AOL went public in 1992 and was a pioneer in technology and communication. It reached a market value of $164 billion in 2000 shortly before merging with Time Warner. It then crashed along with the rest of the industry following the bursting of the dot-com bubble.
The Nasdaq Composite Index closed at 26,040.03 on Wednesday, the day of the IPO, according to FRED data.