On Monday, BuzzFeed, a media company saw its shares rise and fall in a short time after its debut on the Nasdaq. The public offering had been in focus as it was made by merging with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) called 890 Fifth Avenue Partners. BuzzFeed shares “BZFD” saw a brief spike up to 35 percent and then fell by more than four percent.
The brief stock surge showed that there was some initial investor interest but other signs indicated that there was distrust in the digital media company’s plans. BuzzFeed is expecting to raise $16 million from its offering. Investors in the SPAC pulled out $287.5 million that was 94 percent of the amount raised by the SPAC, according to a recent SEC filing. The Wall Street Journal was the first to report this.
Other media companies were looking to see the path charted by BuzzFeed before they went public. The choppy start has been noted but the company’s chief executive Jonah Peretti said in an interview on Friday that he didn’t care how they went public. He added that once they saw that they had a “path through that market” although it was cold, “it was just a means to an end to get public,” according to a report in The New York Times.
Vice had delayed its plans while Group Nine’s SPAC went public early this year but has not as yet closed a deal. SPACs which are also called blank check companies have lost a lot of their shine this year.
Jonah Peretti co-founded BuzzFeed 15 years ago. According to a report by Yahoo, he said that he had expected investors would pull their money out as the market for SPACs had cooled. He said that this factor wouldn’t change their strategy as the company still had money. The company had raised $150 million from convertible note that was still part of the transaction.
Peretti also noted that BuzzFeed was now a public company so it could use its stock as currency and could buy other businesses.