The New York Stock Exchange reportedly used stand ins to make its trading floor look busier when trying to win Snap's IPO

Hollis Johnson

• The New York Stock Exchange reportedly used stand ins when it attempted to lure Snap's initial public offering, the New York Post reported Friday.
• Executives at the Big Board ordered dozens of employees to head down to the trading floor to make it look busier than it really was in order to impress Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, the report said.
• Watch Snap trade live.

The New York Stock Exchange used a trick two years ago when it attempted to lure Snap's initial public offering, a report says.

On November 18, 2016, executives at the Big Board ordered dozens of staffers to head down to the trading floor to make it look busier than it really was in order to impress Snap CEO Evan Spiegel as he weighed whether to list the social-media company there, the New York Post reported on Friday, citing sources.

According to the Post's sources, Spiegel remarked during a tour of the exchange that the trading floor looked empty. In response, Thomas Farley, then president of the exchange, ordered officials to fill it up.

An employee caught the event on video, showing a slew of NYSE employees on the trading floor - standing around chatting, rather than shouting, shoving, and barking into phones. But it's not clear whether Spiegel actually saw the event before leaving the building.

Spiegel "never toured NYSE nor set foot on trading floor prior to IPO," Farley told The Post.

"The New York Stock Exchange is one of the most transparent workplaces in the world, with news outlets broadcasting live from our trading floor all day long," an NYSE spokesperson told Business Insider on Friday.

"All NYSE employees are welcome to visit our trading floor, and do so regularly to celebrate momentous events that happen every day of the week, including our Opening and Closing Bells, large IPOs, visits by world leaders and other distinguished guests who often convene at our iconic 11 Wall Street building."

With the development of over-the-counter trading and network brokers, stock-exchange trading floors are less crowded than in the last century.

Snap went public in March 2017, raising $3 billion through its IPO.

It's stock has gotten whacked this year, plunging more than 70% since February after Kylie Jenner's infamous tweet blasting the Snapchat app's redesign. Selling has since wiped out more than $17 billion of market value.

The company's Snapchat app has lost popularity since its redesign, and sustained pressure from Facebook and Instagram has contributed to a declining users base. The company said in its second-quarter earnings release, on August 7, that it had suffered its first decline in sequential daily active users. That trend continued in its most recent quarter, when the company said that its number of daily active users fell by 1%, and that it expected further declines in the fourth quarter.

Snap shares were down 76% since going public.

Read the New York Post story here.

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