Bullish prices US$1.1bn NYSE IPO four dollars above high end
Bullish, the Thomas Farley-led crypto exchange, secured US$1.1bn on its NYSE IPO, which was dramatically upsized and priced well above the valuation targeted amid huge investor demand.
JP Morgan, Jefferies and Citigroup priced 30m shares late Tuesday at US$37.00, four dollars above the high end of the upwardly revised US$32–$33 marketing range and after having revised terms from 20.3m shares at US$28–$31.
The offering was more than 20x covered, allowing for allocations to be concentrated in the hands of long-only investors. Management played an active role in the allocation process. One-third of investors who put in for the deal received no stock at all, bankers involved in the offering told IFR.
Cathie Wood’s Ark Investment Management and BlackRock committed to invest up to US$200m in the offering at launch.
Bullish is scheduled to debut Wednesday on the NYSE under the ticker “BLSH”.
The offering values the four-year-old exchange at a US$5.5bn enterprise valuation basis, a roughly 16.5x multiple of projected Ebitda for 2026. The much larger Coinbase trades at a 21.3x multiple of 2026 Ebitda, according to LSEG data.
In an unusual move, Bullish took delivery of the proceeds in a mix of cash and stablecoin, providing efficiency and certainty of execution.
As of March 31, Bullish held US$144m worth of stablecoin, US$1.735bn of bitcoin, US$22m of Ethereum and US$33m of other digital assets.
Bullish has grown rapidly through acquisitions, including the purchases of crypto data and analytics providers CoinDesk and CCData in 2023 and 2024. Going public will provide currency for additional acquisitions.
In the trailing 12 months ended March 31, Bullish generated US$51m of adjusted Ebitda on revenue of US$250m.
Bullish is headed by Thomas Farley, the former CEO of both the NYSE Group and current NYSE parent Intercontinental Exchange. The company is asking for a lot of credit for continued growth, and investors appear willing to pay.
Bullish’s main exchange business last year processed US$284.8bn worth of bitcoin and US$144.5bn of Ethereum, giving it a 35% and 44% market share. In the first quarter, the exchange traded an average of US$2.5bn worth of bitcoin per day, according to information in its prospectus.
In addition to spot trading, the exchange recently introduced futures contracts.
The purchases of CoinDesk and CCData provide fee-related income from index administration and data services.
Full circle
In a separate transaction, Circle Internet launched marketing of a 10m share follow-on offering late Tuesday, just two months after the USDC stablecoin provider went public via a US$1.05bn Nasdaq IPO. The offering, which is scheduled to price after the market close Thursday, is one of the quickest ever first-time follow-on offerings.
Early in Wednesday’s session, Circle shares were down 3.7% to US$157.10, versus the US$31.00 price at which it went public.
Circle is selling 2m shares on the offering and selling shareholders led by IDG Capital and General Catalyst the remaining 8m shares.
JP Morgan, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, the lead banks on the follow-on offering, agreed to waive lock-up restrictions associated with Circle’s June IPO. The offering comes just 71 days after the IPO, versus 76 days between Snowflake’s US$3.36bn IPO in September 2020 and its first follow-on in December of that year.