Square readies for IPO and first day of trading

It said it had net revenue of $332 million in the third quarter, while in the same quarter a year ago, the company had net revenue of $227 million and a net loss of $37.7 million.

Square’s debut on the public market isn’t likely to assuage jittery tech investors, smarting over the wobbly performance of cloud storage company Box. There hasn’t been a lot of successful tech IPOs this year, and the lukewarm response Square has drawn from Wall Street shows investors may not warm up to large tech companies going public for the rest of the year.

Square is set to begin trading Thursday on the NY Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “SQ”.

Many have held up Square as an example of how fleeting – and at times nonsensical – private market valuations can be. In addition, private valuations can include the value of options, which usually aren’t counted when a company goes public.

As Square was preparing to go public in recent weeks, the company said it expected to price its shares between $11 and $13.

Square, which was founded in 2009, made its name on the white, square-shaped credit card readers used by small businesses.

One in three USA tech companies that have listed in 2015 priced their shares below the company’s private value, according to news agency Reuters. Square will have to issue these Series E investors shares to make up the difference.

Square’s offering is the second high-profile IPO this week, alongside Match Group, which owns a group of dating service companies, including Tinder and OkCupid. Square planned to sell 25.6 million shares in the offering, while existing stockholder Start Small Foundation, a donor-advised charitable fund created by Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey, planned to sell 1.35 million. Suggesting that Dorsey may be too busy to have enough time for Square, the company noted that his work at Twitter “may at times adversely affect his ability to devote time, attention, and effort to Square”.