NYSE Group President Lynn Martin Talks IPOs & Skydance Trading Debut

SPEAKER_1 (0:02)

Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio, News.

Dani Burger (0:07)

Joining us now from the trading floor is Lynn Martin, president of the NYSE Group. Lynn, thank you so much for joining us. And as I mentioned, a big win, the biggest merger in Hollywood history, now on the New York Stock Exchange. What did it take to win them over?

Lynn Martin (0:22)

Well, thanks for having me on today. It's always great to be with you guys, and it's an absolute honor to welcome Skydance to our platform. As you say, it is one of the biggest media acquisitions of all time, mergers of all time, and certainly from a studio perspective, the biggest. It's been an absolute honor to work with David, who's a tremendous human, in addition to being a wonderful executive. And of course, we're thrilled to welcome Iman to the exchange as well.

Dani Burger (0:57)

So Lynn, this is just one in a recent string of companies coming over the New York Stock Exchange, AstraZeneca, Kraft Heinz, among the recent ones. Are there any other conversations? Should we be expecting any other large cap companies to be making their way to the New York Stock Exchange?

Lynn Martin (1:12)

Well, we're always open for business, so in accepting applications, both IPOs and transfers. But to your point, we've welcomed about half a trillion dollars in market cap to the exchange so far this year. In fact, three companies have left an index that is run by our competitor voluntarily and made the decision that NYSE was the better platform for a variety of reasons for them to call home.

Dani Burger (1:43)

Can you just get into that? Because that is a big undertaking to, I'll say the name so you don't have to, to leave the NASDAQ, to leave that index. What does it take to win them over? What convinces them to move to the New York Stock Exchange?

Lynn Martin (1:55)

So it's a variety of options, and it's really down to the platform that we've deliberately curated. It's our services that we offer, both consultative as well as, you know, helping them blow out their experience from a marketing and communications perspective. But then importantly, it's also the market model and the community that you want to be aligned with.

On the market model side, that's something we've deliberately curated over 234 years. It is something that has withstood significant periods of volatility, and companies value that.

Dani Burger (2:37)

Of course, you know, the NASDAQ would argue for a lot of reasons why they would be the home. And I think, Lynn, there's this question for these mega IPO's. It's one that you are used to. They managed to win over SpaceX. And I wonder how you're thinking about the anthropic IPO. Is the New York Stock Exchange still in the conversation with them?

Lynn Martin (2:54)

Well, I can't really comment on any specific IPO. You know, we talk to companies throughout their life cycle, from Series A, even sometimes from Stealth, all the way through to IPO. It's one of the privileges I have in my job.

I meet the most amazing humans, these founders, these innovators, who are really changing our lives for the better, by the way. Improving the way we work, improving the way we operate our personal lives, and looking to really make a difference for the betterment of the world.

Dani Burger (3:33)

Lynn, I know you've been on this program several times this year and have been really bullish about the prospect of IPOs, and we have gotten a lot, especially in the first half of this year, but something feels slightly different in this fall. We had Aura delay their IPO, CBC backed Bamboo, Holtec Nuclear, both of those on the same day, citing market conditions. Lynn, has something changed?

Lynn Martin (3:56)

Well, I think when you look back at this year and you look to the projections many of us made for the start of the year, probably one thing we didn't consider was interest rates and an interest rate rise, which the Fed understandably, given macro conditions, acted quickly in September.

So I think the overall macro conditions is really what is impacting firms' plans to go public. But importantly, the market's open. The market's been open. The market's been open for years. It's just a question of the valuation that some of these companies want to accept as part of their IPO. Some other companies are saying, heck, I just want to get public because of the currency that gives me. That gives me the ability to raise additional equity. It gives me the ability to raise debt at different levels. So it really comes down to each company making the decision as to what valuation they want to go public with. And that is a very specific decision that founders and management teams make for a variety of reasons.