Ines Ferré

Compass (COMP), the real estate tech company, backed by Softbank, went public on the New York Stock Exchange (^IXIC) on Thursday. Shares opened at $21.25 popping as much as 22% in the first few minutes of trading. 

Compass priced its IPO at $18 a share, at the low end of its reduced range. The company raised $480 million dollars after sharply downsizing is offering on Wednesday.

The company describes itself as an “end-to-end platform that empowers our residential real estate agents to deliver exceptional service to seller and buyer clients” according to its S-1 filing. It was founded in 2012 by Ori Allon and Robert Reffkin.

Compass has 19,385 agents on its platform as of December 31, 2020, covering 46 markets across the United States. 

“In 2020, Compass agents assisted home sellers and buyers to transact approximately $152 billion in residential real estate – or 4% of the U.S. market – up more than fourfold from $34 billion in 2018,” according to the company. 

Revenue in 2019 and 2020 was $2.4 billion and $3.7 billion, respectively, representing a year-over-year increase of 56%. Net losses were $388.0 million and $270.2 million in 2019 and 2020, respectively.

Compass went public on the same day the S&P 500 (^GSPC) crossed 4,000 for the first time. Tech shares rallied on Thursday following a recent sell-off last quarter as investors rotated into cyclical and value stocks. 

Originally posted on Yahoo Finance