Electric planes from Beta, payments from PayPay and LG in India: What's important about the IPO by Oct. 19

Electric airplane developer Beta Technologies and Japanese QR payments market leader PayPay are preparing major IPOs at the end of the year in New York, despite the U.S. government shutdown. LG Electronics' Indian subsidiary LG Electronics outperformed its parent company in terms of capitalization after rising one and a half times on the first day of trading. IPO candidates in the U.S. have no more than four weeks left to go public in 2025 - due to the shutdown, holidays and financial reporting requirements. See our selection of the week's top IPO news.

- Electric-powered airplane developer Beta Technologies has decided to list in the US and raise up to $825 million despite the shutdown. In the IPO prospectus, the company announced plans to offer 25 million shares at a price of $27 to $33 per paper. The offering price is scheduled to be determined on Nov. 3. A placement at the upper end of that range would capitalize Beta Technologies at $7.2 billion, Bloomberg calculated. Blackrock and other funds, as well as aircraft engine maker GE Aerospace, have expressed their intention to buy $300 million worth of shares. In 2025, the ALIA electric airplane developed by Beta Technologies made a short flight from East Hampton (Long Island) to New York, and also made its debut at the Le Bourget Air Show.

- Japan's SoftBank is preparing an IPO of its payment application PayPay on the U.S. exchange, which could take place as early as December, sources told Reuters. They said shareholders are assuming a 2 trillion yen ($13.3 billion) valuation for the company at the base level, but hope it will exceed 3 trillion yen ($20 billion). The base valuation is based on PayPay's dominant position in Japan's QR payments market and the potential to expand its business domestically. But investors' views differ on PayPay's overseas expansion prospects, which could justify a higher valuation, one of the sources said.

- Uzbekistan's most expensive startup Uzum, which combines marketplace and banking services in a super-application format, has added London to its list of possible listing venues, co-founder Nikolay Seleznev told Reuters. In addition to London, which was not previously mentioned, Uzum is considering New York's Nasdaq, Abu Dhabi and Hong Kong. The company is preparing to go public in 2027. Its valuation was $1.5 billion during the August 2025 investment round. According to the startup, 17 million people use its super app every month.

- British digital bank Shawbrook, specializing in lending to small businesses, has announced plans to list on the London Stock Exchange in early November, The Wall Street Journal reports. The bank aims to raise 50 million pounds ($66.8 million). The IPO market in Europe is recovering, the newspaper notes: last week, Swedish security company Verisure and prosthetics developer Ottobock went public, while canned tuna producer Princes Group - a subsidiary of Italy's NewPrinces - confirmed plans to list in London.

- The Indian "daughter" LG Electronics on the results of the debut trading after IPO surpassed the capitalization of the parent company. Shares of LG Electronics India closed at 48% above the offering price. As a result, the company reached a valuation of $13 billion while LG Electronics itself is worth about $9 billion, writes Reuters. According to the agency, the $1.3 billion LG Electronics India IPO was fully subscribed within hours of the start of bookbuilding and in total raised bids of nearly $50 billion.

- Meanwhile, the stock exchange debut of Tata Capital, one of the top 3 non-banking credit institutions in India, was unimpressive - on the day of listing its shares rose by 1.4%. According to Nikkei Asia, Tata Capital's IPO of 155 billion rupees ($1.7 billion) was the largest on the Indian stock market in 2025. At the same time, it is almost twice as much as the largest offering last year, during which the Indian unit of Hyundai Motor raised 272 billion rupees.

- Companies planning to IPO in the U.S. in 2025 have no more than four weeks left to do so, warned Wells Fargo co-head of equity capital markets Jill Ford. Opportunities to go public in the U.S. have narrowed dramatically this year because of the federal government shutdown and holidays, she said. "There are about four suitable weeks: two weeks before Thanksgiving (Nov. 27. - Oninvest) and two after, assuming the initial public offering market closes for the last two weeks of December," Ford said. In addition, companies that use the second-quarter earnings report in their IPO filings need to have time to list by Nov. 12 to avoid a new audit and postpone the stock exchange debut to December, Bloomberg notes.

- Chinese robotaxi services Pony.ai and WeRide, amid concerns about delisting in the US, have received permission from the Chinese authorities for secondary listing in Hong Kong, Nikkei Asia writes. Pony.ai and WeRide are based in Guangzhou. They went public on the Nasdaq in the fall of 2024. Both companies have small fleets compared to players such as Baidu's Apollo Go and Google's Waymo, the publication notes. Right now, Pony.ai has about 300 robotaxis, while WeRide, which emphasizes unmanned buses, has about 400 vehicles.

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