SpaceX rockets to $75bn raise in biggest US listing to date

(Sharecast News) - SpaceX has raised $75bn in a recordsetting initial public offering, catapulting Elon Musk's rocket, satellite and artificial intelligence group into the upper tier of USlisted companies amid surging investor demand.

SpaceX priced 555.6m shares at $135 ahead of trading on Friday, with the deal potentially climb to $86bn if banks exercise an additional greenshoe allocation, implying a valuation of $1.78trn. It also sets the tone for potential listings from Anthropic and OpenAI later this year.

According to people familiar with the deal, orders came in at more than three times the shares on offer, with demand spanning major asset managers, Gulf sovereign wealth funds, hedge funds and retail buyers.

Individual investors alone placed more than $100bn in orders and were expected to receive between 20% and 25% of the shares sold. Bank of America led the US retail book, while Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley were among the global coordinators.

SpaceX intends to use the proceeds to fund projects ranging from AI infrastructure to new satellite constellations, while around $20bn will be used to repay a bridge loan taken out in March after Musk folded his debtheavy AI and socialmedia ventures into SpaceX.

Hargreaves Lansdown's Matt Britzman said: "SpaceX's long-awaited IPO is set to be one of the biggest moments for markets today, with reports suggesting the offer is around four times oversubscribed. The real test comes once trading begins, because strong demand for an allocation does not always translate into the same willingness to buy in the open market, and long-term returns will still come down to the familiar mix of business quality, fundamentals and valuation. UK investors should also remember that US IPOs usually go through an opening auction at the start of the session, which can last a few hours, so SpaceX is unlikely to be available to trade straight out of the blocks."

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com