Palantir’s Long-Awaited Public Debut Frustrates Some Investors

A listing date that moved twice, a company known for parsing data that couldn’t find some of its own shareholders, and a complicated twist on an already unfamiliar route to market. Palantir Technologies Inc.’s direct listing had everything –- and left some shareholders wondering whether the 17-year-old company was really ready to go public.

Palantir started trading Wednesday, choosing to run a seldom-tested direct listing process instead of a traditional initial public offering. The stock closed Friday at $9.20, below the $10 per share it opened at on the New York Stock Exchange, giving the company a market valuation of $15.2 billion.

On a fully diluted basis, including all classes of shares and employee stock options, Palantir is valued at $20.2 billion.

Just days into the secretive big data firm’s journey as a public company, some shareholders have privately expressed frustration about the process, with accusations of technical glitches, misplaced records and disorganization that left some investors with an inability to sell shares.

Bloomberg News spoke to about a dozen investors, most of whom asked not to be identified as the details are private. Palantir declined to comment for this article.

Palantir’s first day of trading was short but eventful, starting at 1:38 pm Wednesday in New York with a little over two hours to go before the market closed. The company’s long and complicated shareholder roster slowed the opening of trading, people familiar with the matter said. The price setting process is overseen by a market maker -- in this case Citadel Securities -- which matches buy and sell orders to establish an opening price, in consultation with lead adviser Morgan Stanley and NYSE. While Palantir had tried to clean up its capital table in the months leading up to the listing, it wasn’t enough when it came to confirming data on thousands of private investors during the price discovery process.