Ackman's dual listing, SpaceX and the "board of shame" in Hong Kong: What's important about IPOs by March 15

Billionaire Bill Ackman has decided to launch his investment fund's IPO in the US under a "buy five shares, sixth one free" scheme. Tesla converted its investment in xAI into a small stake in SpaceX ahead of the largest listing in history. Hong Kong exchange offered to publicly shame professionals who failed to prepare documents for the initial public offering. The main events on the IPO market for the week - in our selection.

- Billionaire Bill Ackman, one of the most famous hedge fund managers, has filed for a dual IPO on the New York Stock Exchange. He plans to take his management company Pershing Square Inc. and a new closed-end investment fund, Pershing Square USA, public at the same time. The management company shares will not be sold separately in this IPO. They will be credited to investors at a rate of 20 Pershing Square shares for every 100 Pershing Square USA securities purchased. Ackman, who calls himself a Warren Buffett fan, expects to raise $5-10 billion in this way. In 2024, he already tried to bring Pershing Square USA to the NYSE, but was forced to cancel the listing because he collected bids for only $2 billion against a goal of $25 billion.

- Electric car maker Tesla has converted its investment in startup xAI into a stake in SpaceX ahead of its IPO. Tesla bought shares in the space corporation directly from Elon Musk, who heads both companies, Bloomberg writes with reference to regulatory documents. Earlier, Tesla invested $2 billion in xAI. According to the agency's sources, after the recent merger of xAI with SpaceX, these investments will be equivalent to a stake of less than 1%. The chain of consolidations began back in 2022 with the purchase of social network Twitter, which Musk renamed X and then merged with xAI at a valuation of $33 billion. In February 2026, the merger of these assets with SpaceX resulted in a single business worth $1.25 trillion.

- American supplier of ventilation and filtration systems Madison Air Solutions has applied for an IPO on the NYSE. According to Bloomberg interlocutors, the company intends to sell at least $2 billion worth of shares. According to the application, two-thirds of last year's revenue of the manufacturer was provided by the commercial segment, which includes data centers, logistics, medicine and industrial plants. Madison Industries Holding formed Madison Air Solutions through a series of acquisitions that began in 2017. After going public, founder Larry Guice will retain control of the company through ownership of special voting shares.

- Shares of Japanese QR payments market leader PayPay jumped 13.5% on the first day of trading after its IPO in the US. PayPay floated 55 million shares below its stated price range of $16 apiece on the Nasdaq exchange amid market turbulence due to the war in the Middle East. The $880 million listing was the largest for companies from Japan on U.S. exchanges in 10 years. PayPay's capitalization at the end of the placement amounted to $10.7 billion. The result reached the target, which the company itself was focused on ("over $10 billion"), but was almost half the estimate insisted on by its shareholder SoftBank ($20 billion). At the end of the debut trades the market value of PayPay increased to $12.7 bln.

- Shares of German submarine components manufacturer Gabler Group fell below the offering price at the debut trading in Frankfurt on March 9. Against the background of the general collapse of the market due to the Iranian crisis securities closed in the minus by 1.6%, losing the initial morning growth, which amounted to almost 14%. During the IPO, the company and its majority owner Possehl sold shares for €115.5 million. The price of the securities amounted to €44, which is closer to the upper limit of the stated range. According to Bloomberg, the offering generated strong demand, with more than 140 institutional investors applying, outnumbering the supply by a factor of seven. Gabler Group's defense sector accounted for 75% of its revenue in 2025. The company produces masts for submarines, marine infrastructure protection and underwater power systems.

- Index provider S&P is considering rule changes to accelerate SpaceX 's inclusion in the S&P 500 after its IPO, Bloomberg reported, citing sources. Right now, there is no fast track into Wall Street's main stock benchmark: the issuing company must be traded on the exchange for at least a year. According to Bloomberg, about $24 trillion in assets are tied to the S&P 500. The inclusion of Elon Musk's space corporation in the benchmark would trigger an automatic inflow of billions of dollars from index funds. Accelerated mechanisms for large initial public offerings are also being developed by Nasdaq and FTSE Russell operators. According to Reuters, SpaceX is leaning toward listing on the Nasdaq exchange, but only on the condition of early inclusion in the Nasdaq 100 index.

- The management of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, dissatisfied with the deteriorating quality of documents for IPO, proposed to apply the approach of "Naming and Shaming": to send unscrupulous professionals to the "board of shame", reported the Financial Times. The exchange plans to publish the names of lawyers, accountants, auditors and industry consultants who participated in the preparation of applications with errors. Stock exchange officials said the move, combined "with the application return measures in place," would create a "powerful incentive" to comply with standards. Amid the influx of Chinese issuers into Hong Kong, the regulator and the exchange have already warned investment bankers about the poor quality of listing documents. The claims included the use of promotional language, direct copying of content and ignoring specific questions.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor