United States: SEC Approves Nasdaq Rule Change Allowing Direct Listings With A Capital Raise

In our prior article on the latest and greatest in direct listings, we noted that we were expecting that Nasdaq would follow the NYSE's lead to allow for capital raising concurrently with a direct listing. On May 19, 2021, and after a number of back-and-forth proposals, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved a proposed Nasdaq rule change to allow for capital raising concurrently with a direct listing on the Nasdaq Global Select Market.

Direct Listings + Capital Raise

In addition to a direct listing where only existing stockholders offer their shares for resale to the public, the new Nasdaq rules will allow companies to raise primary capital at the time of the direct listing. Nasdaq refers to this new type of offering as a "Direct Listing with a Capital Raise." This gives companies flexibility to raise capital in a direct listing on both Nasdaq and NYSE.

How Can My Company Qualify for a Direct Listing with a Capital Raise?

To qualify for a Direct Listing with a Capital Raise, the company's unrestricted publicly held shares before the offering, plus the market value of the shares to be sold by the company in the direct listing must be at least $110 million (or $100 million, if the company has stockholders' equity of at least $110 million), with the value of the unrestricted publicly held shares and the market value being calculated using a price per share equal to the lowest price of the price range established by the company in its S-1 registration statement.

Any company conducting a Direct Listing with a Capital Raise would also have to meet all of Nasdaq's other initial listing requirements, including the requirement to have 450 round lot stockholders (stockholders that hold more than 100 shares) with at least 50% of such round lot holders each holding unrestricted securities with a market value of at least $2,500 and 1.25 million publicly held shares outstanding at the time of listing. While compliance with these requirements is oftentimes a foregone conclusion in a traditional initial public offering (IPO), a lack of a grace period for compliance with these requirements in a direct listing, specifically from the round lot requirements, will make it difficult for many companies to pursue the direct listing option, including a Direct Listing with a Capital Raise. One way a company can add additional stockholders to meet the round lot requirements is to release transfer restrictions in advance of the direct listing.

What is the Reference Price for a Direct Listing with a Capital Raise?

It is important to remember that the "reference price" in a direct listing is merely a directional indicator to the market for where the stock might trade on the first day of trading. No shares actually trade hands at the reference price—it is simply a starting point for the price-discovery process. 

For a direct listing without a capital raise and where the company does not have a sustained private placement market for its shares prior to listing, the reference price is determined by the exchange in consultation with the company's financial advisors. There is no specific formula for determining the reference price. To determine the reference price, the exchange and financial advisors look at a variety of factors, including recent secondary trades on the private market, comparable public companies and reports from a company's independent valuation provider. The company is not allowed to participate in the reference price determination.

Just like a traditional IPO, in a Direct Listing with a Capital Raise, a company would be issuing new shares and would be required to disclose a price range for the shares on the cover in its S-1 registration statement. For a Direct Listing with a Capital Raise, the reference price is the lowest price of the price range set forth in its S-1 registration statement.

How Does the Trade Occur in a Direct Listing with a Capital Raise?

As noted above, a Direct Listing with a Capital Raise would allow the company to sell shares in the opening auction on the first day of trading on the exchange. To effectuate this, Nasdaq introduced a new order type for a Direct Listing with a Capital Raise called a Company Direct Listing Order (CDL Order). While there are many granular details about the CDL Order in the final rules, the most important ones are that the CDL Order is a market order which is entered without a price so the price will be determined by the Nasdaq Halt Cross, or the opening auction, and (1) the price must be at or above the lowest price and at or below the highest price of the price range set forth in the company's S-1 registration statement; and (2) the full quantity of the order (i.e., the total number of shares that the company seeks to sell in the Direct Listing with a Capital Raise) must be sold within that price range. If there is insufficient buying interest and Nasdaq is not able to price the auction to satisfy the CDL Order, and all other market orders priced better than the price determined by Nasdaq, the shares would not begin trading.

The proposal approved by the SEC differs from the original proposal submitted by Nasdaq for a primary direct listing in August 2020. In its original proposal, Nasdaq sought to provide greater flexibility than the price range set forth in the company's S-1 registration statement. Under Nasdaq's original proposal, a primary direct listing would have been permitted to proceed as long as the price determined in the opening auction was equal or greater to 20% below the lowest price in the price range disclosed in the company's S-1 registration statement and also would have allowed the company to calculate compliance with the listing requirements based on that same price. Following concerns expressed by the SEC with this approach in December 2020, Nasdaq amended its proposal. While the greater flexibility Nasdaq originally sought with respect to the pricing of the Direct Listing with a Capital Raise was not included in the amended proposal which has been approved by the SEC, Nasdaq has indicated that it intends to file a separate proposal which would include this flexibility in pricing.  

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