Nasdaq teams with Citi, other banks on market for private stocks

Nasdaq Inc. has formed a joint venture with Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley to establish a trading venue for shares of closely held companies.

Nasdaq Private Market will be added to the new stand-alone company, which will also get strategic investments from the three Wall Street banks and SVB Financial Group, Nasdaq said in a statement Tuesday.

The marketplace’s existing technology, client relationships and regulatory infrastructure will provide a foundation for the joint venture to offer liquidity for closely held companies, Nasdaq said.

Interest in investing in such companies has grown in recent years as novel ways of bringing them public, including the use of blank-check firms, have gained steam. The new platform will give closely held companies, brokers and investors the ability to access, manage and execute their stock transactions through a global marketplace, Nasdaq said.

Participants will be able to engage in tender offers, buy-side book-building, auctions, investor block trades, company-directed windows of liquidity and pre-direct-listing trading.

“This joint venture will accelerate our opportunities in the private-company secondary-trading market and establish the standard for technology-driven operational efficiencies, compliance and execution,” Nelson Griggs, president of the Nasdaq Stock Exchange, said in the statement.

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