IPO Watch: First Data, Square — The 10 Need-To-Know Stats

The payments IPO news on the Street kept the headlines abuzz about two of the most talked about public debuts of the year. While First Data finally made its debut, Square has set plane in place to join Wall Street soon.

Catch the Top 10 stats that came from the IPO news this week.

First Data

First Data, first day, first decline.

The widely watched debut of the payments processing giant on the public markets — regarded by some observers as a tell on investor appetite for new stocks — fizzled. Here’s the 5 top stats to know from the day:

Shares were down nearly 2 percent, dipping below the $16 initial price, itself a reduction from earlier expectations, to end the day at $15.75

All told, the IPO raised $2.6 billion for First Data, which processes trillions of dollars of transactions across credit and debit cards and other financial instruments.

First Data’s market value itself stands at $14 billion.

The funds raised will go at least partway towards paying down a chunk of the $21 billion in debt that the company is carrying

Initial reports about First Data indicated that the company would seek an IPO initially estimated that the valuation could top $40 billion.

Square

The news the payments community has been waiting for hit the wires this week — Square has filed for its IPO.

The mobile payments startup officially announced the plans on Oct. 14. which revealed that Square will trade on the NYSE as SQ.  The filing also provides some color from Square’s executive board, revealing the obvious risk of having its CEO serve as the CEO of another publicly traded company.

“Jack Dorsey, our co-founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer, also serves as Chief Executive Officer of Twitter. This may at times adversely affect his ability to devote time, attention, and effort to Square,” the filing reads.

Here’s the 5 top stats to know from the day:

The SEC filing shows that Square filed to offer up to $275 million in stock, which may only be a placeholder until the amount is fully calculated.

CEO Jack Dorsey, who also just took over as permanent CEO once again at Twitter, with a 24.4 percent ownership in Square

Square lost $71 million from processing Starbucks payments in three years. Starbucks accounted for 11 percent of Square’s total sales this year — but accounted for a 21 percent of the company’s transaction costs.

Revenues were $850 million in its latest full year, sales grew by more than 53 percent over 2013.

The most recent valuation reports has pegged Square to be worth $6 billion (admittedly before the end of 2014’s full term) and which is a 6x sales multiple on 2015 (projected), and more than 7x on 2014 (actual).