Ticketing platform StubHub shares fall below IPO price after early trading jump
Make us a preferred source
Make us a preferred source on Google
The news: Shares in StubHub, a New York-based ticket resale platform, fell below its IPO price on Wednesday after briefly jumping as much as 19% in early trading.
The company raised approximately USD 800 million ($1.2 billion) in its initial public offering before debuting on the New York Stock Exchange, selling 34 million shares at USD 23.50 each and valuing it at up to USD 9.32 billion.
Shares opened at USD 25.35, peaked at USD 27.89, then dropped to USD 23.11 by mid-afternoon.
The context: The listing, delayed multiple times due to market volatility, follows years of preparation and places StubHub among a wave of major tech IPOs during the strongest period for US listings since 2021.
CEO and co-founder Eric Baker called the offering a “deleveraging event” to raise capital and pay down debt. Baker reacquired StubHub in 2020 after Viagogo, another ticketing company he founded, agreed to buy it for USD 4.05 billion. He now holds 88.3% of the company’s voting power.
In the first half of 2025, StubHub reported a net loss of USD 76 million on USD 827.9 million in revenue, a 3% year-on-year increase. Rival ticketing giant Live Nation reported 6% growth over the same period.
StubHub is facing a lawsuit in Washington, DC, over its pricing practices, as well as separate inquiries in Pennsylvania and New York. The company is also subject to broader scrutiny from US regulators investigating the live events industry.
What they said: "It’s been a long and winding road,” Chief Executive Eric Baker said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.
"It is really a deleveraging event for us to raise the capital, to pay down debt," he then added in an interview with Reuters.
"With revenue growth still slow and the industry under scrutiny for fees and fairness, investor appetite looks more measured than exuberant," Kat Liu, vice president at IPO research firm IPOX, told Reuters.
The sources: Reuters, Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, Associated Press
