Slack Files for Public Offering, Joining Silicon Valley’s Stock Market Rush | NYT

Final sentence: "In January, Microsoft announced that 420,000 organizations used its Teams product, including 89 of the Fortune 100."

"There is likely to be a strong demand for Slack stock. The company was valued at $7.1 billion by private investors last year, but in recent weeks investment firms have offered to buy its shares at a price that values Slack at $13 billion, according to a person with knowledge of the details who was not authorized to speak publicly.

Slack also plans an unusual form of public offering called a direct listing, the person added. Unlike most I.P.O.s, in which firms sell stock to public market investors in advance, direct listings let a company begin trading its shares on an exchange without raising new funds. Spotify, a provider of streaming music, went public in 2018 in a direct listing, paving the way for other high-profile start-ups to follow.

With a direct listing, shareholders can also sell their stock immediately after the public offering, instead of waiting for what is known as a lockup period to expire."

Slack Files for Public Offering, Joining Silicon Valley’s Stock Market Rush | NYT