ZipRecruiter Given $18 a Share Reference Price by NYSE

(Bloomberg) -- ZipRecruiter Inc. was assigned a reference price of $18 a share for what will be the fourth major direct listing of the year on a U.S. exchange.

The job search and recruiting company’s shares are set to begin trading Wednesday without the company raising any capital. The reference price issued Tuesday by the New York Stock Exchange is intended merely as a guide for investors and to allow trading to begin.

If the company does trade near its reference price, it would have a fully diluted valuation of about $2.4 billion based on the shares listed in a statement. The company’s Class B shares were trading privately during the first quarter at $9 apiece, according to the filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

ZipRecruiter’s listing follows those by website-hosting service Squarespace Inc., which become the first company to close below the reference price in its debut last week. Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global Inc. and online game maker Roblox Corp. also went public through direct listings. Palantir Technologies Inc. and Asana Inc. did so last year, following an alternative route to public markets established by Spotify Technology SA in 2018 and Slack Technologies Inc. the following year.

Like its predecessors, ZipRecruiter won’t issue new shares at a set price. Instead, current investors can simply begin selling shares based on demand when trading opens, without waiting for a lockup period to expire.

The Santa Monica, California-based company became profitable in 2020, even as its revenue declined slightly, according to its filings. Since its founding in 2010, more than 2.8 million businesses and 110 million job seekers have used ZipRecruiter, the company said.

ZipRecruiter was valued in a 2018 funding round at $1.5 billion. Last year, it had net income of $86 million on revenue of $418 million, compared with a net loss of $6.3 million on revenue of $430 million in 2019, according to its filing.

Chief Executive Officer Ian Siegel and other executives, along with investors such as Institutional Venture Partners and Wellington will continue to control the company through Class B shares, which carry 20 votes each compared to one each for the Class A shares to be sold to the public.

While banks don’t underwrite offerings as they do in IPOs, they do advise the company on the process. ZipRecruiter’s advisers include Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co., according to the filing.

ZipRecruiter’s shares will trade on NYSE under the symbol ZIP.

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