After years of eyeing an initial public offering, Reddit is finally planning to take the plunge next week. And the online message board is giving its users a slice of the action.
Earlier this month, some of Reddit’s most active users, called redditors, logged into their accounts to find a message asking if they wanted to own a piece of Reddit in its IPO. Those users had until March 5 to indicate their interest in purchasing stock at the same price as institutional investors, the far more usual buyers of newly public shares.
Redditors now have until March 18 at 11:59 p.m. To complete their applications, create a brokerage account with a partner bank, and add funds to it to cover their stock purchase, according to an email sent to a participating redditor viewed by Coins2Day.
The company plans to set the IPO price, expected between $31 and $34 per share, on March 20 after 5 p.m., the email reads. Redditors will have from then until the next morning—March 21 at 7 a.m.—to make their purchases, the company expects. The Financial Times previously reported Reddit’s stock will begin trading on March 21, citing two sources with knowledge on the matter. The latest email to certain redditors appears to confirm that date.
Reddit declined to comment.
Reddit has been toying with a public market launch since December 2021, when it filed confidentially for an IPO. Last month, the company made a public filing for a market debut.
The directed share program is described as “an opportunity for redditors who have contributed to making Reddit what it is today,” the company said. Since there are a limited number of shares available through this program, Reddit is making the offer to only a select number of users. It is unclear what metrics Reddit used to decide who is eligible. The company did not disclose how many shares it has set aside for each individual or the group to purchase.
Reddit isn’t the first company to offer this kind of share-purchasing incentive to users. When Airbnb went public in 2020, it offered some U.S.-based hosts the option to buy shares at the IPO price of $68 each. When trading started, the stock soared to $146, and it is now worth $163. Uber also offered a directed share program in 2019, in which certain drivers could buy shares at $45. Though the stock opened lower than the IPO price at $42 and eventually fell to $20, it’s now at $77.50.
For the IPO, Reddit has partnered with a series of underwriters, including Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and J.P. Morgan to facilitate the stock purchases, according to its filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Redditors using Morgan Stanley will buy shares using ETrade, the online brokerage company the bank acquired in 2020, the email said.