Klarna becomes with this valuation one of the largest stock exchange listings on Wall Street so far this year.
The introductory price is clearly above the benchmark in Klarna's prospectus, which was sent out last week. There, the target price was set at $35-37 per share.
But the listed American competitors Affirm and Paypal are currently approximately twice and five times as highly valued, respectively.
The valuation plummeted in the new share issue
From a Swedish perspective, Klarna's valuation can be compared to Volvo Cars' valuation of 163 billion kronor in the listing on the Stockholm Stock Exchange in 2021, as well as Spotify's valuation in the introduction on the New York Stock Exchange in 2018: 245 billion kronor.
One can also compare with the Swedish major banks – which in several business areas are challenged by Klarna and other so-called fintech companies – whose valuations are currently around 240-360 billion each.
Klarna has historically, when the company has taken in new capital in new share issues, been valued significantly higher. In the spring of 2021, the valuation was up at $45.6 billion, which according to the then current exchange rate corresponded to 485 billion kronor. In a new share issue just over a year later, the valuation plummeted to 71.5 billion kronor.
According to Klarna, trading in the share on the New York Stock Exchange will begin on Wednesday. The company will live broadcast from the stock exchange opening on its Instagram channel, where CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski and other members of Klarna's management are present.
Turnover lifted in the second quarter
The buy-now-pay-later company was founded in 2005 by a Swedish entrepreneur trio – CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski together with Victor Jacobsson and Niklas Adalberth – but then with the name Kreditor Europe AB.
Klarna – which competes globally with payment services such as Affirm, Afterpay/Clearpay and Paypal – has since the company was launched in the USA in 2015 grown significantly and received a banking license from the Financial Supervisory Authority in 2017.
Turnover lifted in the second quarter this year to 7.9 billion kronor, which gave an adjusted operating result of 278 million. But the net result was a loss.
The number of active consumers using Klarna was summarized in the quarter to 111 million in 26 countries, and the number of merchants using Klarna around the world to 790,000.
The payment company Klarna will, in connection with the stock exchange introduction, issue almost 5.6 million new shares. To the New York Stock Exchange, the nearly 28.8 million existing shares that the owners put up for sale in the introduction will also be added.
The banks that are arranging the listing – with Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley at the forefront – have, in addition to this, the opportunity to buy an additional 5.1 million shares from the major owners according to the same terms as the introduction offer. If they were to utilize these options, the number of Klarna shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange could increase to 39.5 million.
The proportion of Klarna's total 377.8 million outstanding shares that are traded on the New York Stock Exchange after the introduction has been completed may thus end up at 9-10 percent.
Source: USA's financial supervisory authority SEC
According to the prospectus Klarna has submitted to the USA's financial supervisory authority SEC prior to the introduction on the New York Stock Exchange, the largest owners in terms of number of votes are:
Sequoia (American venture capital company): 21.3%
Heartland (Anders Holch Povlsen's Danish investment company): 10.0%
Viktor Jacobsson (founder): 8.5%
Sebastian Siemiatkowski (CEO and founder): 6.9%
Commonwealth Bank of Australia: 5.2%
Among the institutional owners, the pension company Skandia Liv is also listed in the prospectus, with 1.1% of the shares.
Source: USA's financial supervisory authority SEC
