Wish falls as much as 16% below IPO price in trading debut after raising $1.1 billion

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Wish falls as much as 16% below IPO price in trading debut after raising $1.1 billion
A trader works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, New York, U.S., March 3, 2020.Andrew Kelly/Reuters
  • Wish parent company ContextLogic fell as much as 14% in its trading debut on Wednesday, giving the e-commerce company a market valuation of about $15 billion.
  • The company raised $1.1 billion when it priced its IPO at $24 per share, giving it an initial market valuation of $17 billion on a fully diluted basis.
  • An IPO frenzy has quickly materialized in the fourth quarter of 2020, given the eye-popping surge in recent trading debuts for Airbnb, DoorDash, and C3.ai.
  • Watch Wish trade live here.
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Wish parent company ContextLogic fell 5% at the open of its trading debut on Wednesday, giving the e-commerce company a market valuation of about $15 billion on a fully diluted basis.

The stock opened at $22.75 and hit an intraday low of $20.05, representing a decline of 16% from its initial public offering price of $24.

Wish priced its IPO at $24 per share, raising $1.1 billion in proceeds at a valuation of $17 billion. That's well ahead of the company's last fundraising round as a private company in August 2019, when the firm raised $300 million at a valuation of $11 billion.

Wish was created by former Google engineer Piotr Szulczewski. The e-commerce platform relies on a personalized visual browsing experience rather than the traditional search and go shopping habits facilitated by a search bar.

Wish's catalog has grown to more than 150 million items, and it sells nearly 2 million items per day, according to its S-1 filing. The company did $1.9 billion in revenue in 2019 and is not yet profitable.

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Wish's IPO debut and subsequent decline is the opposite of high flying public debuts this quarter. Last week, Airbnb, DoorDash and C3.ai posted substantial gains of 113%, 86% and 174%, respectively. And in September, Snowflake completed the largest software-technology IPO in history and has been on a tear since its debut.

Read more: Fund manager Brian Barish has returned more than 550% to investors over 2 decades, and he just had 2 of his best years ever. He told us how he did it - and 3 top picks for the next 5 years.

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