Twitter just announced via tweet that the price per share of its initial public offering has been set at $26, with an $18 billion valuation. The shares, which have been priced above a previous range of $23 and $25, will be available on the New York Stock Exchange Thursday morning.
The $26 IPO was debated by Twitter’s board of executives and underwriters until Wednesday afternoon, and is indicative of a high demand for the microblogging service’s stocks. Twitter raised $1.8 billion in the offering, selling 70 million shares.
Recently, Twitter had increased its IPO price range, which had the stock potentially sitting between the aforementioned $23 and $25. This came after an earlier estimate of shares possibly going for between $17 and $20.
Twitter said in its filing:
Prior to this offering, there has been no public market for the common stock. It is currently estimated that the initial public offering price per share will be between $23.00 and $25.00. Our common stock has been approved for listing on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “TWTR”.
We are an “emerging growth company” as defined under the federal securities laws and, as such, may elect to comply with certain reduced public company reporting requirements for future filings.
Twitter users took to the platform, mostly concerned with the use of a low-resolution image to explain the IPO, which exceeded Twitter’s 140 character limit:
@twitter Oh cool is this new?
— Matthew Panzarino (@panzer) November 6, 2013
@twitter great image looks good on mobile
— Steve Kovach (@stevekovach) November 6, 2013
@twitter Great job with the low-resolution image of your press release. Really expert tweeting, there.
— dustin curtis (@dcurtis) November 6, 2013
Interestingly, grey market analysts have predicted that Twitter stock will be at $43.60 per share, by the end of Thursday.
Image via Wikimedia Commons.