Luxury fitness company Peloton (PTON) began trading on Nasdaq Thursday at a price range of $29 per share. In exchange for issuing 40 million Class A shares, the company raised $1.16 billion, which values Peloton at $8.1 billion.
Peloton is the first company to make cycles and treadmills equipped with screens for users to join live and recorded fitness classes remotely, taking interactive sports to a new level. The company has earned an ardent and zealous clan of users, who stream its classes from their homes, hotels or the office.
Using a business model similar to the Netflix model of subscription membership, the company currently has 1.4 million members, which it defines as an individual who has created a Peloton account. Peloton’s roughly $2,000 high-tech bicycles and $4,000 treadmill enable it to maintain strong margins.
But while the IPO has created much buzz, there is some concern that it could be more like a WeWork, who’s botched IPO led to the removal this week of Adam Neumann as CEO, than a Beyond Meat, which skyrocketed as much as 360% this year, before falling back towards Earth.
It’s not all smoothing sailing for Pelaton. The company is battling litigation, including a $300 million lawsuit lodged by 10 music publishers and artistic groups, which accuse the company of utilizing of more than 2,200 songs without licensing any of them.
For investors who want a piece of the IPO action, but don’t necessarily want to assume all the risk associated with investing in a single stock like Uber, Lyft, Beyond Meat, or Peloton can look to the Renaissance IPO ETF (NYSEArca: IPO). IPO seeks to replicate the price and yield performance of the Renaissance IPO Index, which is a portfolio of companies that have recently completed an initial public offering (“IPO”) and are listed on a U.S. exchange.
The IPO ETF is up 29.07% despite the market volatility that has racked the equities space due to the U.S.-China trade wars and inverted yield curves.
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