High-Profile Firms Freeze IPOs Amid Market Meltdown

“Bye for now, IPO later?” After watching global equities markets get throttled last week, that’s what executives at buy now, pay later (BNPL) giant Klarna are thinking.

They’re not alone. Several high-profile firms that were expected to go public have decided to delay their plans rather than plunge headfirst into the chaos unleashed by the US administration’s sweeping tariffs.

The Roadshow Not Taken

This year began with great promise for the US IPO market, with bankers forecasting a new presidential administration would put an end to a three-year drought with business-friendly policies including tax cuts and red-tape reductions. The final trading day of March even brought great promise in the form of CoreWeave’s $1.5 billion offering, the biggest tech debut since Arm in 2023.

And while the Republicans in power could very well still pursue the above-mentioned pro-business policies, energy so far has been spent taking an axe to historic trade alliances. Markets, unsurprisingly, are less fond of that, which has made going public suddenly less appetizing: Who is scrambling to get into a world where the S&P 500 is down 12.8% this year and the Nasdaq Composite 18.4%? Not these folks:

• Klarna, which filed IPO documents in New York last month, was expected to seek a $15 billion valuation, but sources told the Wall Street Journal Friday that those plans are on hold. To boot, medical equipment manufacturer Medline, which was seeking a nearly $50 billion valuation, paused its IPO plans, sources told the Financial Times. Investor roadshows in advance of planned offerings by event ticket retailer StubHub and online physical therapy provider Hinge Health are also in indefinite limbo now.
• Klarna need only look at one of its best-known American competitors, Affirm. The company’s shares tanked 9.3% Friday and have cratered more than 42% this year. Not helping is increasingly cautious consumer sentiment — spending rose a mere 0.1% in February after adjusting for prices, according to the Commerce Department.

News Overload: StubHub, which also delayed IPO plans in July last year, reportedly backed out of its roadshow because the company was concerned investors would have neither the time nor the attention span to sit through a feel-good presentation about the secondary tickets market when their phones would likely be blowing up with more news about the global financial markets in meltdown. A reasonable call, to be fair.