Tens of thousands of Aussies in bid for SpaceX shares
Tens of thousands of Australian retail investors are about to find out how many shares they’ve been allocated in the world’s largest ever IPO.
SpaceX will go public on the US Nasdaq stock exchange on Friday, with a listing that would raise up to US$75bn ($A106bn) to advance Elon Musk’s grandiose vision of making human life multi-planetary.
In a rare and perhaps unprecedented move, retail investors in Australia, Europe, the UK and several other countries outside the US have been granted access to the hot initial public offering (IPO).
CommSec, the leading Australian broker for the transaction, warned of “extremely high call volumes” earlier this week and advised clients to submit their applications online.
“We’ve had very good interest from a very broad range of Australian investors,” a source familiar with the transaction but not authorized to speak publicly told AAP.
The source said tens of thousands of Australian retail investors, as well as pension funds and institutional investors, had also applied for allocations.
“I definitely think it’s a really healthy, healthy level of interest based on the number of applications, and I think the demand is very healthy,” he said.
He said it was probably the most oversubscribed IPO in Australia since Medibank Private’s 2014 IPO, which raised $5.7 billion for the federal government.
The funds each prospective investor will receive will be delivered to them on Friday afternoon, Australian time.
Reuters reported on Wednesday that the IPO was nearly four times oversubscribed, with more than US$250 billion ($357 billion) in investor demand.
This could possibly mean allocations will be reduced or some investors may be denied allocations.
A Commonwealth Bank representative did not comment on a report in the Australian Financial Review that 30,000 of its retail clients had bid for shares through the CommSec platform.
SpaceX shares were being offered at US$135 each (US$A191), valuing the space exploration company at a whopping US$1.75 trillion (US$A2.5 trillion); This makes it among the 10 most valuable companies in the world.
The shares will begin trading on Nasdaq on Friday, U.S. time, under the symbol SPCX.
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