UFC-owner Endeavor shares spike as trading begins on NYSE

Shares opened at $27 apiece

Endeavor Group Holdings Inc. shares jumped 13% in the opening trade on the New York Stock Exchange. 

Shares of the Ari Emanuel-led Hollywood talent agency that owns the UFC sports league, which trades under the ticker EDR, opened at $27 after pricing at $24, the upper end of the expected range.  Wednesday’s pricing valued the company at about $6.1 billion. 

Ticker Security Last Change Change %
EDR ENDEAVOR GROUP 25.73 +0.22 +0.86%

Endeavor is also raising $1.8 billion through a private placement, a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing showed. Investors in the private offering include private equity firms KKR & Co. and Silver Lake Partners and fund manager Elliott Investment Management.  

The company, which will add Tesla CEO Elon Musk to its board of directors, plans to use a portion of the proceeds from both its initial public offering and private placement to buy shares from UFC shareholders. 

Thursday’s IPO was Endeavor’s second attempt at going public. The company pulled its $400 million IPO in 2019 due to weak investor demand. 

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Endeavor last year posted a $992 million net loss on revenue of $3.48 billion, filings showed. 

Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, J.P. Morgan and Deutsche Bank Securities led the offering.