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(Sharecast News) - Elon Musk's SpaceX is to sell shares priced at $135 when it debuts on Wall Street later this month, as it looks to raise as much as $86bn.
Publishing pricing details late on Wednesday, the rockets-to-artificial intelligence specialist said it planned to sell 555.6m shares, raising $75bn. However, if underwriters exercise an option to sell additional shares, that will rise to $86bn, giving the loss-making business a market value of around $1.78trn.
Such a valuation would make it the largest ever IPO, and immediately place SpaceX among the top ten most valuable US-listed firms.
Chief executive and founder Musk, who is also chief technical officer and chair, will continue to hold around 82% of the voting power. Much of the company's business plan - including building data centres on the moon and colonising Mars - is also based on technology that has yet to be developed.
Despite that the IPO has garnered huge interest and will test analyst concerns about sky-high valuations across the AI sector. The listing price of SpaceX - formally Space Exploration Technologies Corp - would see the company trade at 92x annual revenues.
Richard Hunter, head of markets at Interactive Investor, said: "Even prior to the float, there has already been a chorus of concern that the company is seriously overvalued at those levels, that any valuation is based on future earnings which are yet to be proven and that at such an elevated price the IPO could flounder after trading begins."
SpaceX is due to launch an investor roadshow next Thursday, with trading slated to get underway on Nasdaq the following day.
Proceeds of the IPO will be used to expand SpaceX's AI infrastructure, develop space launch vehicles and grow the Starlink satellite internet constellation. SpaceX is also required to repay a $20bn bridging loan to the lead banks on the IPO within six months of debuting.
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