Wall Street giants tout SpaceX as Musk speaks at pre-IPO investor event
Written by: Tatiana Bautzer and Nupur Anand
NEW YORK, June 4 (Reuters) – Wall Street’s investment banking giants are hosting hopeful buyers of Elon Musk’s SpaceX at glitzy events starting on Thursday, offering something most banks can’t: access to the rocket maker’s top executives ahead of its blockbuster IPO next week.
Musk himself attended a pioneering event virtually.
The futuristic IPO, which based its lofty valuation on science fiction concepts like colonizing Mars and data centers in space, captured the imagination and wallets of Wall Street and investors looking for a piece of the action.
Bank of America, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley will host events over the next few days.
Set to raise a record $75 billion, it will be the largest of all time. With an expected market capitalization of $1.75 trillion, the company will quickly become one of the most valuable listed names globally.
Musk spoke to JPMorgan clients via video link at an event hosted by CEO Jamie Dimon on Thursday; A source familiar with the matter said it was a last-minute addition to the event.
When asked by Dimon what prompted him to now take SpaceX public, Musk said: “We are entering a major new phase of growth and we need capital for that.”
Musk also said he feels “pretty good” about the company’s revenue forecasts and that revenue has become “much more predictable” than before.
SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell and CFO Bret Johnsen personally attended JPMorgan’s recently opened headquarters. Even Musk’s mother, Maye, was in the room.
At the first event of this scale for the bank, attended by about 3,500 clients, Dimon said JPMorgan intends to “treat individual investors the same way institutions are treated.”
JPMorgan also on Thursday repeatedly played video of SpaceX’s rocket launch on large screens at its headquarters, including the words “Go Launch” projected several feet high in the lobby.
Bank of America, which leads retail distribution efforts in the United States, decorated the lobby of its headquarters in midtown Manhattan with SpaceX rockets and other displays for an event for wealth management clients on Thursday, a person familiar with the matter said.
The event will be chaired by Co-President Jim DeMare, who will interview SpaceX’s Shotwell and Johnsen about the company’s first public commercial launch, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. It was unclear whether Musk would attend the Bank of America event. The bank also plans to light up the building’s tower on Thursday night to resemble a rocket ship taking off.
