Spotify co-founder just sold $40 million in their stock
One half of the founders of Spotify has decided to sell of a massive $40 million in stock after going public has bumped their value up more than they expected.
Martin Lorentzon, Daniel Ek’s other half in creating the pioneering streaming service Spotify, has just sold a massive chunk of company stock. Following their independent public offering (IPO) listing earlier this year Spotify’s stocks have seen a massive gain in value. Stock was trading 37% higher than their IPO reference of $132 when Lorentzon sold stock worth $40 million.
That’s a lot of money and a lot of stock, but it won’t be any skin off of the back of Lorentzon. The Swedish streaming service founder has a stake worth up to $4 billion thanks to the incredible success of Spotify in the past 10 years that it has been running. They have since built themselves up to become one of the biggest streaming services in the world and the favourite for listening to music in the Western world.
It’s been a busy month for shifting stock in Spotify. Near the beginning of August, Warner Music announced that they would sell all of their stock in Spotify and distribute the earnings to their artists. It was a kind move but some worried signified their distrust in Spotify’s future. WMG CEO Steve Cooper confirmed it had nothing to do with Spotify’s prospects and the decision was made as Warner are “not, by our nature, long-term holders of publicly traded equity”.
Following their successful, and long-awaited, IPO Spotify have become favourites for stock analysts and their value has successfully remained positive. Earlier in the year Daniel Ek sold stocks as well, however his sales were worth only $9 million.