Source: Slack plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange in June or July, taking the same path as Spotify for its direct listing
The workplace messaging company Slack Technologies Inc. plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange in June or July, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Context & Ripple Effects
Slack is moving fast on a plan first reported in January, when sources said it would skip the traditional IPO and go straight to a direct listing in Q2. The company has since confidentially filed with regulators and, per later coverage, prepared its prospectus for the NYSE — so this June-or-July window is the timeline firming up rather than a new strategy.
The template it is following belongs entirely to Spotify, whose own direct listing plans on the same exchange were reported back in 2017 with Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and Allen & Co. advising. A second marquee name choosing the route matters because one precedent can be dismissed as idiosyncratic; two start to look like a playbook.
First-order effects
- Slack's early employees and investors gain a path to liquidity without the company issuing new shares or raising primary capital — consistent with its later S-1 update registering about 117M Class A shares and projecting $196.5M in proceeds, all secondary in nature.
- The New York Stock Exchange cements itself as the venue of choice for direct listings, now hosting both of the route's flagship transactions after Spotify's debut.
Second-order effects
- Banks' economics on these deals shift: Spotify's advisory lineup (Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Allen & Co.) shows advisors are paid for pricing and market-making support rather than underwriting spreads, forcing banks that rely on IPO fees to build an advisory product or lose the mandate.
- Other late-stage workplace and consumer-tech companies weighing an exit now have a second data point showing a listing can happen without a roadshow or lockup-driven scarcity, putting pressure on bankers pitching conventional IPOs to justify their dilution and fees.
Third-order effects
- If Slack's listing prices cleanly — as later coverage suggests it did, with a $26 reference price valuing it at $15.7B — direct listings harden from experiment into a standing alternative for high-profile companies with strong brands, reshaping how the largest private tech firms reach public markets.
The trend: Direct listings are evolving from Spotify's one-off experiment into a repeatable exit route for brand-name tech companies, with the NYSE positioning itself as the standard venue.