The stock price of Slack Technologies surged 50 percent in its market debut on Thursday. Instead of going public through an initial public offering (IPO), Slack opted direct listing, giving its existing shareholders the opportunity to sell their shares on the stock market. It will not receive any proceeds from the sale of WORK shares by its stockholders.
Slack listed its Class A common stock on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol WORK. On Wednesday night, the stock market set the reference price for the stock at $26 per share.
During its trading debut, Slack (WORK) shares traded as much as $42 each and settled at $38.62, up 48.54 percent. After-hours, the stock gained additional 1.97 percent to $39.38 per share, bringing Slack’s market cap at around $19.5 billion.
Slack CEO believes the company’s platform will replace e-mail
Prior to the trading debut, Slack Co-founder and CEO Stewart Butterfield told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin that people will stop using the conventional e-mail over the next seven years.
