IPOs: The Unicorns Moment of Truth

It has been said that in finance things take longer to happen than you would expect, but then unfold faster than you would have thought. This fact seems to be occurring in the mythical land of unicorns. I am fascinated with unicorns because their purported valuations seem to violate basic economic logic. Values not dependent on cash flow, risk and time would upset how we approach mergers and acquisitions. Rest easy as it appears unicorns do not violate the first principles of finance. Rather, their financing round based implied valuations are worse than theoretical (the usual compliant against discounted cash flow models)-they are just fanciful.

Some many unicorns are getting long in the tooth at 5-7 years of age (tech firms age in dog years). Investors are pressing for liquidity AKA an IPO. The IPO process or test is exposing some of the inconvenient facts I have previously highlighted about unicorn implied valuations. A stark example is provided by the pricing range assigned to the pending Square IPO. Last year Square was valued at over $6B based on its last financing round. Fast forward to the present and the IPO values Square in the $4B range. So what the!@#$ happened?

Something could have dimmed the prospects for Square such as the loss of Startbucks next year and continued large operating losses. Also, IPO market conditions have softened somewhat following the August correction. Worse yet is the possibly that Square was never was worth $6B. It seems that investors in the 2014 financing round did not receive ordinary shares. Rather, they received “super shares” providing them with protection against an IPO priced below their financing round value. Basically, they get more shares at bargain prices to make them whole if the IPO is priced at less than their investment. Thus, unicorn values may be inflated and exposed during the IPO process. No wonder many unicorns are trying to postpone going public for as long as they can. It will get even more interesting after they are public when they face scrutiny of real market disciple. Perhaps, things may not be so different for unicorn valuation after all.

J