SpaceX pushes underwriting banks for sub 0.75 percent fee on record 75 billion IPO
Wall Street''s biggest IPO ever is coming and SpaceX wants to pay less for it. Elon Musk''s company is pushing its banks to accept an underwriting fee below 0.75% on a roughly \ billion listing. Even so, lead banks Goldman Sachs \ and Morgan Stanley \ would split about \ million.
SpaceX is preparing what would be the largest initial public offering in history, and it wants Wall Street to accept unusually thin fees for handling it. Elon Musk''s company is aiming to raise about \ billion, which would eclipse every previous IPO. According to Bloomberg, SpaceX is negotiating an underwriting fee below 0.75% of the money raised, far under the 4% to 7% banks typically charge on smaller listings and below the 1% that mega deals usually command. Even at that reduced rate, the roughly two dozen banks on the deal would still share around \ million. Goldman Sachs \ and Morgan Stanley \ are leading the group and are positioned to take the largest slices. For comparison, one of the lowest fees ever on a mega listing was the 0.75% banks accepted for the General Motors \ IPO in 2010, when Wall Street was trying to repair its image after the financial crisis bailouts. SpaceX filed its IPO paperwork publicly in late May and could begin trading as soon as next week. Reporting based on Bloomberg and coverage from Seeking Alpha and MarketScreener.