DJ Data Analytics Firm Palantir Set to Debut on NYSE -- Barrons.com

By Anita Hamilton

The latest in a wave of stock market debuts for tech firms, Palantir will start trading via a direct listing Tuesday under the symbol PLTR. The listing is drawing lots of interest because of pent-up demand among investors to get into the hot data mining space.

Co-founded by billionaire investor Peter Thiel, the Palo Alto, Calif., company is expected to be valued at around $22 billion once its shares start trading at about $10 each.

The company is projecting 2020 revenue to grow around 42% and 2021 revenue to grow more than 30%. It had a net loss of nearly $600 million in 2019.

A direct listing is typically quicker than an initial public offering since it involves listing existing shares, instead of raising money by creating new ones. The company is limiting the number of shares that can be sold to just 20% of the total for the first 180 days.

Only two other venture-backed tech firms -- Slack (ticker: WORK) and Spotify (SPOT) -- have had direct listings in recent years. Slack is down about 30% from its 2019 debut price, while Spotify has risen nearly 40% since its 2018 listing.

As Barron's Eric J. Savitz notes , the expected valuation for Palantir is close to 16 times its implied revenue guidance for next year. That makes it much cheaper than other recent tech listings, like Snowflake (SNOW), but more expensive than "well-established companies like Microsoft at 10 times or Accenture at about 3 times," he adds.

Write to editors@barrons.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 29, 2020 08:09 ET (12:09 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.