Robinhood: The trading platform wants to become a public stock itself, filing for an IPO
Robinhood, the trading platform both loved (and often loathed) by retail traders, has filed for an IPO in the US meaning that Robinhood traders might soon be able to trade Robinhood shares... on Robinhood?
Robinhood is looking to get a valuation of $40bn in its IPO, which is a very punchy 41x last year's revenue for the company, which came in at $959m. The filing also comes just one day after US regulator Finra hit Robinhood with a $70m fine — the highest it has ever given — for causing "widespread and significant harm" to its customers and users.
No such thing as bad press
As well as the monetary fine, Robinhood came under some pretty harsh reviews and criticism for its practices during the early days of the GameStop and retail trading frenzy, when it suspended trading of certain stocks. But as bad as it was, the controversy doesn't seem to have hurt the company's growth.
If anything the opposite has been true. In the first 3 months of this year Robinhood gained 5.5 million net new funded accounts, bringing its total to 18 million. That's a number that it took Robinhood almost 6 years to achieve from 2013-2019. More evidence for the "no such thing as bad press" scrapbook.
