Square exploring stock market debut

As stated by a report from Bloomberg, Square Inc., the mobile-payment company filed confidentially for an initial public offering. The company hasn’t disclosed the amount raised during the funding round. Its private-market valuation, as reported by The Wall Street Journal, is billion.

Under the U.S. Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, companies with less than $1 billion in revenue can file confidentially for an IPO with the Securities and Exchange Commission and test investor appetite while keeping financial and operating details outside the public eye.

That’s a strong indicator that the 38-year-old Dorsey, who’s now interim CEO at Twitter, won’t be sticking around for a much-needed Twitter turnaround. Dorsey, 38, is now splitting his time between two multibillion-dollar companies.

Square processed $30 billion in payments last year, according to Bloomberg, which reported news of the IPO filing earlier (to be followed by various other news outlets).

Colleen Murray, spokesperson for Square, declined to comment on any IPO plans.

The timing of this IPO is very questionable as Dorsey is only running Square but Twitter as well, which he also co-founded and took the reins of as the CEO on an interim basis in June after the resignation of Dick Costolo. Mr. Dorsey returned to the company after a period of absence and has reportedly become involved into planning its long-term strategies.

Dorsey said he will stay at the Twitter helm while the board finds someone to replace Costolo long-term. However, analysts said that the worrisome financial condition of Square had caused there to be a delay of filing for it. One analyst in June called the company’s financials horrific.

Square, which processed $30-billion (U.S.) in payments from its millions of merchant customers in 2014, has been expanding into other areas such as business lending and payroll processing to provide more services.