Snapchat owner shares ‘priced at $17’ despite making losses

Shares in the company that owns Snapchat have soared after it was listed on the USA stock market this morning. But the price of Snap stock – and Snap’s valuation as a company – could go up throughout the day, increasing Spiegel’s net worth by millions – and possibly even billions – in hours.

Mr Hewson added: “Whichever way the share price goes most shareholders would still like to have some sort of say in how the business is run and it is this lack of accountability that is a major concern”.

Meanwhile, Snap’s chairman Michael Lynton planned to sell nearly 55,000 shares in the offering, bringing in more than $930,000.

Snap’s share price rose by nearly 50% in value at one stage yesterday and closed 44% higher at $24.48. Snap’s pricing valued the company at $24 billion.

The Times notes that there is no release date for Snap’s drone, and it is possible that the project – like many other gambles from today’s biggest tech companies – could ultimately be scrapped.

Snap began trading at $24 per share, representing a 41% increase on the initial offer price which was at the top end of market expectations.

Ultimately, Snap’s competition, which includes wide-moat Facebook with billions of users, is overwhelming in our view. Snap was the first technology listing of 2017 in the US. While it has yet to profit off that popularity, it is growing its revenue, which was $404.5 million in 2016.

Snap chairman Michael Lynton, who in January stepped down as CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment, owns about 3 million of the company’s shares.

Snap’s net loss ballooned 38 percent past year to $514.6 million even as it grapples with fierce competition from rivals such as Facebook’s Instagram, says Reuters. A direct comparison with other social networks shows Snap falling predictably short of Facebook’s $100 billion-plus valuation in 2012, but impressively overshadows Twitter’s 2013 opening, which priced shares higher than Snap, but sold only 70 million.

Following the IPO, dozens of Snap’s original investors will become millionaires overnight.