Spotify's record-setting direct listing makes it a $30 billion company

LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Spotify Technology SA (SPOT.N) shares surged following the largest-ever direct listing on Tuesday, giving the world’s leading streaming music service a market value of nearly $ 30 billion.

Shares opened at $ 165.90, up nearly 26 percent from a reference price of $ 132 a share set by the on the New York Stock Exchange late on Monday.

Spotify’s unusual route to publicly trading its shares via a direct listing rather than a more usual initial public offering will likely be watched by other companies tempted to list without selling new shares, and by bankers that could lose out on millions of dollars in future underwriting fees.

Some 14 million shares had changed hands within an hour after trading began on Tuesday. Nearly 91 percent of Spotify’s 178 million shares were tradable, a much higher percentage than typical in a traditional IPO.

Some market-watchers cautioned investors not to read too much into the first-day pop, given the mixed performance of recent tech IPOs.

Spotify’s debut came on the heels of a steep U.S. equity selloff led by tech stocks, although the market had found firmer footing at midday on Tuesday.

“It’s a fair market price. It’s not manipulated or set by any puts and takes by banks or institutional investors,” said Chi-Hua Chien, an early investor in Spotify who is now at San Mateo, California-based Goodwater Capital.

Spotify shares were last at $ 160.32, up 21 percent.

The NYSE had set Spotify’s reference price late on Monday, giving an early estimate of the level at which supply and demand could be balanced.

That was in line with informal trading on Monday, with shares changing hands at about $ 132, which would value the company at more than $ 23 billion.

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Since launching its streaming music service a decade ago, the Stockholm-founded company has overcome heavy resistance from big record labels and some major music artists to transform how the industry makes money.

Spotify offers access to vast libraries of music rather than making users pay for CDs or downloads of individual albums or tracks.

The company has structured the listing to allow existing investors to sell directly to the public while offering no new shares of its own.

Analysts had flagged concerns that forgoing hiring investment banks as underwriters or holding traditional promotional events with institutional investors could mean volatility in Spotify shares once formal trading kicked off.

Spotify’s opening public price was determined by buy and sell orders collected by the NYSE from broker-dealers.

Based on those orders, the price was set based on a designated market maker’s determination of where buy orders could be matched with sell orders.

While Chief Executive Daniel Ek skipped NYSE rituals such as opening bell-ringing and trading floor interviews to tout the stock, the front of the 115-year-old Greek Revival exchange building was draped in a vast green-and-black Spotify banner.

Additional reporting by Helena Soderpalm in Stockholm, Joshua Franklin in New York and Stephen Nellis and Salvador Rodriguez in San Francisco; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli and Bill Rigby

Tech

This 1 Job Interview Tip Makes You Sound More Well-Spoken

Interviews aren"t easy. Trying to make a good impression in a condensed period of time while under pressure makes us all nervous. That"s why preparing for interviews is so vital. Now, more than ever, hiring managers have very high expectations of applicants.

Smart people talk in simple terms.

Studies show people who try to sound important and smart by using long, complex words actually sound less educated and are less respected. The more basic and simply you can speak, the more believable you are. This makes sense. If you have to over-complicate things with a long-winded answer, it can give the impression you are:

None of these are things we wish to convey in a job interview. The solution is to master a three-step process for answering interview questions.

The "experience + learn = grow" model.

Most hiring managers use behavioral questions in interviews. These types of questions require a more-than-one-word answer. The key is to answer with just enough detail, but without going over-the-top. At Work It Daily, we teach job seekers the following format for answering any question concisely.

Experience -- Summarize a situation from your past that validates you have the experience they"re looking for.

Learn -- Share what the experience taught you.

Grow -- Emphasize how you plan to use what you"ve learned to be more valuable to the employer.

For example, if a hiring manager asks, "Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a difficult customer," you might answer:

Experience
"Once, an irate customer called our toll-free line and I answered it. The person had received damaged goods in the mail and was furious. I let him vent his frustration without interruption. When he finally finished, I thanked him for his honesty and apologized for the inconvenience. It was amazing how much his attitude changed when I didn"t try to make excuses. I asked him what he thought would be the best course of action and he suggested having a replacement sent overnight at our expense. I agreed and set it up. By the time we were done, he was complimenting the company on what great customer service we had."

Learn
"What I learned that day is angry customers want to be heard, and focusing on the solution instead of what went wrong is the key to success."

Grow
"Now, I"d like to use this knowledge, along with some of the other valuable customer-service lessons I gained at my last job to help exceed your customers" expectations as well."

See how easy it is to concisely convey your expertise when you follow this format?

P.S. -- Asking questions is as important as answering them.

The best interviews are a two-way dialog. You should leave feeling like you had a meaningful conversation with the hiring manager. To do this, job seekers must also prepare questions to ask in the interview. Knowing how to sound well-spoken is only half of the equation. You also need to know how to appear engaged and excited about the role. The questions you ask can help you connect more deeply with the hiring manager and leave a stronger impression.

Tech

Walt Disney Makes Two Big Additions to Its Board

Media company Walt Disney on Thursday named Oracle’s chief executive, Safra Catz, and her counterpart at Illumina, Francis A. deSouza, to its board.

Disney said their election would be effective Feb. 1 but it was yet to decide on which committees they would serve on.

The company currently has 12 members on its board, including Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey.

The election of the two new members comes at a time when Disney is said to be in the lead to acquire much of Twenty-First Century Fox’s media empire.

Disney CEO and chairman Bob Iger contemplates on extending his tenure past 2019 to facilitate the integration of Fox’s assets if a deal is completed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

Tech