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A number of upcoming US initial public offerings, including $15bn fintech Klarna and $50bn medtech company Medline, have been postponed as Donald Trump’s aggressive tariffs roil global financial markets.
“Buy now, pay later” company Klarna, private equity-backed surgical products company Medline and ticket company StubHub intended to go public but those plans have been put on hold because of market turbulence, said people familiar with the matter. All the companies had confidentially filed plans to list shares in recent months.
Once a company publicly files their IPO paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission, they put themselves on a footing to launch an investor roadshow after 15 days. Klarna was planning to start the investor roadshow for its $15bn listing next week, while Medline, which is backed by Blackstone, Carlyle and Hellman & Friedman, planned to file publicly earlier this week, aiming at a near-$50bn valuation, but both listings have been delayed indefinitely.
Ticketing company StubHub and virtual physical therapy company Hinge Health publicly filed their paperwork last month and were planning to start their investor roadshows early in April, but were now holding off before starting talks with potential investors, people said. The companies were under no obligation to float within a specific timeframe and the listing could still happen in the weeks ahead, the people added.
Bloomberg late on Friday reported Israel-based trading platform eToro had also paused plans for a US public offering that it filed paperwork to pursue last month.
The US IPO market had begun to show some signs of life in recent weeks following a three-year dry spell induced by higher interest rates, with data centre operator CoreWeave earlier this month tabling the biggest tech offering since Arm Holdings in 2023.
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But market volatility unleashed by Trump’s tariffs has knocked equity markets and forced many companies that were hoping to go public to hold off. That marks a stark turnaround from the start of the year, when many bankers had said they expected the IPO market to boom under an ostensibly pro-business Republican administration.
Global markets have plunged since Trump announced sweeping tariffs on US trade partners this week. The losses were extended on Friday as China announced retaliatory measures and investors took fright at the prospect of a full-blown global trade war.
The S&P 500 ended Friday’s session down 6 per cent, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite lost 5.8 per cent.
Klarna declined to comment. Medline, Hinge Health and StubHub did not immediately respond to request comments.
