Jack Dorsey Celebrated Square IPO; Chief Executive Made $1.5 Billion On His Birthday!
Shares of Jack Dorsey's mobile payments company, Square Inc., debuted at as much as 64 percent following a marked-down public offer, according to Reuters.
This event warded off negative sentiments that have hounded Silicon Valley startups recently.
Dorsey co-founded the mobile payments company and at the same time runs Twitter as Chief Executive Officer.
Square Inc's lofty discounted IPO price, was at less than 60 percent from the company's last private valuation. This has raised questions about the possibility of other "unicorn" start-up companies that may need or want to go public, worth at least one billion dollars.
Jack Dorsey's Square shares opened at $11.20 per share, reached a high of $14.78 in early trading, Thursday and booked a 45 percent gain, closing at $13.07, reported CNBC.
The IPO was priced at $9 late Wednesday, which is well below the expected $11 to $13 range; and way below the $15.46 price given in 2014 during Square Inc's last private financing.
"The IPO buyers have very healthy skepticism about unicorn valuations," said Chris Bulger, managing director of Bulger Partners, a tech advisory firm in Boston.
According to analysts, investors were guarded when it came to Square's valuation and most likely waited for shares to land on the public market.
Wednesday's weak price created a pile-on Thursday morning, which drove the stock higher.
Dorsey currently owns more than 71 million shares of Square Inc stock, which the chief executive did not sell via IPO. This is currently valued at $950 million.
Jack also holds approximately 22 million Twitter shares that appreciated by about $11 million on paper, revealed Fortune.
Square Inc pays Jack Dorsey only $6,000 annually and the chief executive does not get paid at all, for his services at Twitter.
Twitter closed at $26.32 per share, Thursday afternoon. Dorsey's stock amounted to a little over $1.5 billion in the two firms, on Thursday.
Jack turned 39 years old, same day as Square's initial public offering.