JPMorgan to trade shares of pre-IPO giants including SpaceX, Robinhood, Airbnb

Stock trading is complicated because those companies aren&#x27;t public yet, but they aren&#x27;t public (yet).<p>I think I recall Elon Musk saying that SpaceX isn&#x27;t going to go public, possibly because it&#x27;s a very long-term endeavor, and his goal is to go to Mars, not make huge profits.<p>So, there&#x27;s clearly a problem there. Companies don&#x27;t want to go public to avoid the incentives of the public market, but they also want their stocks to be traded.<p>One possible approach is the Long Term Stock Exchange which we&#x27;ve discussed a few days ago. One of their goals is to provide liquidity to early employees and other long-term shareholders without necessarily shifting the focus to the quarterly numbers. I don&#x27;t know how well they&#x27;ll achieve that, but I&#x27;m really curious.<p>What would be other solutions?

Both Uber and Facebook traded higher on second market during the 6 months prior to IPO, and then the share price fell after the first week or two. Facebook I remember had deals closing at $45-$50 and then they priced at $38.<p>While diversifying might help, the greatest return with 1 year of purchase might entail selling during the IPO pop... at least that held for Uber and Facebook. If you buy into one of these notes, aren’t the shares likely held as part of a 6 month lock-up? Or would JPM liquidate you as part of the IPO?<p>Wonder if we would see dark pools doing derivatives of these holdings (similar to how credit swap contracts were trade during the financial crisis). That would be the most likely place you could 10x or 100x an investment on a late-stage company like Airbnb, and you might even convince people like Softbank to play?

The sheer amount of money looking for opportunities we have in this stage of the long term cycle is really a pity for small &#x2F; private investors. Not even the worst companies need capital from the public markets...

&gt; The market for trading private company stock is dominated mostly by boutique brokerages based on the West Coast with names like EquityZen, SharesPost and Forge.<p>&gt; Berthe said he believes that New York-based JPMorgan is the first major Wall Street bank to create a team dedicated to trading private shares. People with knowledge of the operations of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley said that while the firms don’t have dedicated teams, they have been facilitating trades in this market for years. In particular, Morgan Stanley last year acquired Solium, a leading manager of corporate stock plans, giving it access to a wide swath of start-up equity.<p>&gt; Unlike shares in public companies like Microsoft, trading in private company stock is complicated and still mostly the domain of old-school voice trading, versus electronic exchanges that close transactions in seconds. Once a trade is negotiated, JPMorgan has to transfer legal ownership of contracts and get clearance from the start-up, a process that can take weeks.

Doesn&#x27;t really explain the mechanics - is JPM to pick pre-IPO companies it expects to have a high volume of interest, and then take a commission for selling &amp; repurchasing (i.e. market-making) the shares OTC?

I mean this is just like in app currency backed by a token backed by a dollar. Maybe it provides a fairer 409A.. maybe. It’s basically a second derivative. Problem is you don’t see the function itself.

If I wanted to do this, are there certain fee-based lawyers that I can hire to read the document? What should I look for?<p>By the SEC definition, I am a qualified investor but this would be the first such investment I&#x27;d make and I don&#x27;t want to mess up

This feels weird. Almost like it’s a <i>rule of law</i> issue that’s at stake when regulations and regulators get left behind.

Won’t this force them to go public? Too many shareholders?

My other question is will this make pre-IPO sales fairer?<p>If historically sales have been over the phone there is the chance people are getting deals based on relationships or priority access.<p>You could make the case that this will make the process more transparent.

Perfect for the investor who doesn&#x27;t fret about pesky things like financial filings.

I wonder if this is a strategy to make them go public if they want or not.

I wonder if this will make it easier to build up larger pre-IPO positions.

Isn&#x27;t there a rule that more than a certain number of share holders -&gt; Must go public<p>This:<p>alex_young 14 minutes ago [–]<p>Won’t this force them to go public? Too many shareholders? reply<p><i></i><i></i><i></i><i></i><i></i><i></i><i></i><p>How can they skirt around these rules?

How this is not a set of ICO-like schemes, flavored with that particular 2017 style, is kinda beyond me.

it just sounds like a competitor to sharespost or forge or any other secondary exchange? what’s different

What does it mean trading private shares? Isn&#x27;t it the property of public companies?

SpaceX is the one to get. It’s the next Tesla once starlink is fully operational.

You can already invest in pre-IPO companies, at least indirectly. Some holdings offer exposure to them, but you won&#x27;t get to be very picky.