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Klarna's Confidential IPO Filing Could Have Big Impact for These Holdings

The SEC filing is short on details, but here is what we’ll be watching and why.

Chris Versace·Nov 13, 2024, 1:00 PM EST

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Reports out this morning indicate that Swedish buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) company Klarna has “confidentially submitted” a draft IPO registration filing with the SEC. This is a strong indication the company intends to become a publicly-traded, U.S.-listed security. 

Because the filing was confidential, many details are being withheld for now. This means that we don’t know the timing of the offering or which firms are the lead underwriters. Based on year-to-date league tables for investment banking fees, Morgan Stanley MS and Goldman Sachs GS are the top two firms when it comes to equity underwriting fees.

Given our positions in Morgan Stanley as well as Bank of America BAC, we’ll be on the lookout for that information along with the full IPO filing, which will give us far more insight into Klarna’s business and financials.

Should Klarna go through with the IPO process, and it be received well by the market, that would be supportive of better IPO activity in 2025 compared to this year or last year. A pickup in that activity would be beneficial to investment banking activity and generated fees. As we get more information on the Klarna IPO and assess its impact on future IPO activity, we’ll revisit our MS and BAC price targets as needed. 

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At the time of publication, TheStreet Pro Portfolio was long MS and BAC.