OpenAI Pulls the Plug on Sora, Ending $1 Billion Disney Partnership 
Apple Turns 50: From Garage Startup to AI Crossroads 
Meta Ties Executive Pay to Aggressive Stock Price Targets in Major Retention Push 
SK Hynix Eyes Up to $14 Billion U.S. IPO to Fund AI Chip Expansion 
Reflection AI Eyes $25 Billion Valuation in Massive $2.5 Billion Funding Round 
Microsoft's $10 Billion Japan Investment: AI Infrastructure and Data Sovereignty Push 
Britain Courts Anthropic Amid US Defense Department Dispute 
Elon Musk Ties SpaceX IPO Access to Mandatory Grok AI Subscriptions 
SMIC Allegedly Supplies Chipmaking Tools to Iran's Military, U.S. Officials Warn 
NASA Artemis II: First Crewed Moon Mission Since Apollo Takes Four Astronauts on 10-Day Lunar Journey 
Chinese Universities with PLA Ties Found Purchasing Restricted U.S. AI Chips Through Super Micro Servers 
SpaceX Eyes Historic IPO at $1.75 Trillion Valuation 
TSMC Japan's Second Fab to Produce 3nm Chips by 2028 
NASA's Artemis II Crew Arrives in Florida for Historic Moon Mission 
MATCH Act Targets ASML and Chinese Chipmakers in New U.S. Export Crackdown 
Federal Judge Blocks Pentagon's Blacklisting of AI Company Anthropic 
Snapchat’s newly formed parent company Snap Inc. recently announced that it will finally have an initial public offering in the market sometime soon, with the target timeline falling somewhere around March 2017. The social media entity is also estimated to have an initial value of $25 billion. To handle this transition to public trading, Snap chose Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.
The banks were reportedly notified of their role earlier this week, Bloomberg reports. The information came by way of people who are familiar with the matter. The sources also indicated that JPMorgan Chase & Co. will be playing a role, along with Deutsche Bank AG and Allen & Co., among others.
Morgan Stanley had previously helped the social media company with a credit facility back in September. This likely contributed to Snap’s decision to make the bank the head of its IPO initiative.
If the offering pulls through, it would be the largest IPO from an American tech company that the bank has ever handled. Neither Snap nor any of the banks reportedly involved are willing to comment on the development.
After its last round of funding, Snap now stands at $18 billion in terms of private market value. This would make it the largest social media company to go public since Twitter, which went public back in 2013. Comparing the two might not be the healthiest proposition for Snap, however, as Twitter is struggling in the stock market right now.
According to the sources of Business Insider, March would be the ideal target for the timeline of the IPO launch. It would give them an earlier advantage over other tech companies that might go public in 2017. Depending on the election, the U.S. stock market could be in a healthy state as well, which could only be good for Snap’s stock value.
