From Facebook to Robinhood: 10 IPO debuts that struggled and what followed

An initial public offering sets a price before a single share trades in public. From the first trade onward, the market sets its own price. The two numbers do not always agree, and the gap between them is where many hyped stock market debuts have come undone.

The offer price, also called the IPO price, is agreed between a company and the banks underwriting its sale before trading begins. First-day trading is the first public test of that number. Demand gathered before a listing does not guarantee buyers at that price once the market opens. When a stock falls below its offer price, traders say it has broken issue. Investors who bought at the offer then hold shares worth less than they paid.

A weak start does not decide a company's long-term fate. Facebook $META priced its shares at $38 when it listed on the Nasdaq $NDAQ on May 18, 2012. The exchange had technical problems on the first day, and the stock later fell below $38. It recovered over roughly the following year, and its parent company now operates as Meta Platforms.

This slideshow covers 10 IPO flops and troubled listings from 2011 to 2021. It is a selection of widely covered offerings, not a ranking. Some fell in first-day trading, as Uber $UBER, Peloton and Robinhood did. Others, including Snap $SNAP, Lyft $LYFT and Rivian $RIVN, slid below their offer prices in later trading. Snap and Rivian first traded above their IPO prices before that reversal.

The question of where those stocks are now is answered here through verified corporate outcomes, not share prices that move every trading day. Groupon, which listed at $20 in November 2011, carried out a reverse stock split in 2020. Zynga's run as a public company ended when Take-Two Interactive $TTWO completed its acquisition in May 2022. WeWork withdrew its planned 2019 IPO. It went public through a SPAC merger in October 2021 and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 2023.

The slides follow in order of listing date. Each one names the company, its offer price and listing date, and what happened to the shares once the public could trade them.

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Facebook $META went public on the Nasdaq $NDAQ on May 18, 2012, at an offer price of $38 a share. The stock later fell below that price, then recovered over roughly the following year.

The debut ran into trouble on its first day. The Nasdaq had technical problems as trading in the new shares got under way. Those problems sat with the exchange, not with the company selling the stock.

After the debut, Facebook shares slipped under the $38 offer price. The stock had broken issue. For a period, it traded below the level the company and its underwriters set before public trading began.

The decline did not hold. Over roughly the next year, the shares recovered. That sequence is why the Facebook listing counts as a rough debut rather than a permanent failure.

The company's name has also changed since the offering. Its parent company now operates as Meta Platforms. The 2012 listing took place under the Facebook name.

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Groupon went public in November 2011 at $20 per share, and the stock later fell far below that offer price. In 2020, the company carried out a reverse stock split.

Groupon is a daily-deals company. It sells discounted vouchers for local businesses such as restaurants, spas and fitness studios. It keeps a share of each voucher sale.

For shareholders, the $20 offer price is the yardstick for the listing. Buyers in the IPO paid that amount for each share. Any later trade below it marked a loss on paper for anyone still holding from the offering.

A reverse stock split works in the opposite direction from an ordinary split. The company combines a set number of existing shares into one new share. The share count falls, and the price per share rises by the same proportion.

Ownership stays the same. A shareholder who held 1% of the company before the split holds 1% after it. The mechanics of the split do not change the company's total market value.

Companies commonly turn to a reverse split when their share price has fallen to a low level. A higher per-share price can help a stock meet an exchange's minimum price requirement for continued listing. The Nasdaq $NDAQ and the NYSE both have continued-listing standards tied to a $1 minimum share price.

A reverse split also changes how past prices look. Data providers adjust historical share prices to reflect a split. Charts then show earlier prices on the new share basis. For a reverse split, the adjustment multiplies earlier prices by the split ratio. Groupon's adjusted offer price therefore sits above the $20 at which shares were sold in 2011.

That adjustment matters for anyone comparing Groupon's later share price with its IPO price. A post-split price has to be set against the split-adjusted offer price, not the original $20 figure. Without that adjustment, the comparison does not hold.

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Zynga went public in December 2011 at $10 per share. Its life as a separately listed company ended in May 2022, when Take-Two Interactive $TTWO closed its purchase of the business.

That gave the stock a public run of more than 10 years. It began with the December 2011 debut and finished with the completion of the sale.

The takeover moved from agreement to completion in the same calendar year. Take-Two Interactive agreed to buy Zynga in 2022, and the transaction closed that May.

Zynga's place in this selection rests on how its independent listing ended, not on a first-day drop.

An acquisition is a different exit from a bankruptcy filing or a slow fade on the exchange. In a takeover, a buyer agrees to pay for the entire company. Shareholders of the target generally receive cash, shares of the buyer or a mix of both. The merger agreement sets the exact terms.

Whether an original IPO buyer came out ahead depends on two numbers: the price paid and the value received at closing. An investor who bought at the $10 offer price would compare that figure with the deal terms. Someone who bought later in open trading would measure the result against a different starting point.

A deal of this kind does not take effect the moment it is announced. The two companies first sign an agreement. The transaction then has to meet the conditions set out in that agreement. For a public company, those conditions can include a shareholder vote and regulatory review.

Once a deal closes, the acquired company's stock stops trading on its own. It is delisted from its exchange, and the business carries on as part of the buyer.

That is where Zynga stands now. It has no separately traded stock. The business sits inside Take-Two Interactive. Public-market exposure to Zynga now comes through Take-Two Interactive shares.

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Snap $SNAP went public in March 2017 at $17 per share. The stock traded above that offer price on its first day of trading, then fell below $17 within months. Snap is the parent company of Snapchat.

Traders call this pattern a pop followed by a fade. A pop happens when the first public trades come in above the offer price. A fade happens when the shares give back those early gains. In Snap's case, the fade went past the starting point.

Each half of that sequence tells a different story about the $17 price. Buying above it on day one showed that public demand at the open exceeded what the offering charged. The slide below it within months showed that this early demand did not set a floor under the shares.

That makes Snap a different case from a listing that breaks issue in its opening session. A weak debut signals doubt about the price from the first trade. Snap's opening signaled the reverse, and the doubt arrived later.

The outcome differed depending on when an investor bought. Investors who received shares at $17 through the offering began with a paper gain on day one. Investors who bought in the open market that first day paid more than $17. Once the stock dropped below the offer price, both groups held shares worth less than the IPO price. Those who bought at first-day prices had a larger gap to recover.

Snap's case also shows the limits of judging an IPO by its first session. Measured on day one, the listing beat its offer price. Measured over the months that followed, the shares failed to hold that price. The two readings come from the same stock, separated only by time. For anyone sizing up a new listing, the offer price is the fixed reference point.

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Uber $UBER listed its shares on the New York Stock Exchange in May 2019 at an offer price of $45. By the end of its first trading session, the stock had closed below that price.

The timing of that drop sets Uber apart from listings that rose on debut and faded later. A first-day gain gives early buyers a chance to sell above the offer. Uber's opening session offered no such window. Investors who received shares at $45 and held them through the close finished the day underwater.

A debut close below the offer price is a direct judgment on the pricing itself. It shows that open-market buyers on day one would not collectively pay the price the company and its underwriters had chosen. On its own, it does not settle the question of the business's long-term prospects.

Uber Technologies trades under the ticker UBER. Its best-known product is a smartphone app that connects riders with drivers for paid trips. The company also runs Uber Eats, a food delivery service that uses the same app-based approach of matching customers with nearby workers.

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Lyft $LYFT went public in March 2019 at an offer price of $72 per share. The stock later traded far below that price.

Lyft runs a ride-hailing app that matches passengers with drivers. Its listing came weeks before Uber $UBER's May 2019 debut. That order made Lyft the first of the two U.S. ride-hailing rivals to sell shares to public investors that year.

The $72 offer price is the benchmark for judging how the listing held up. Lyft's problem was not mainly a bad first day of trading. The shortfall came later, as the market valued the shares far below what IPO buyers had paid.

That later decline is what places Lyft in this selection. It shows a weak result that built up after the debut rather than on it.

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WeWork withdrew its planned 2019 IPO and reached public markets through a SPAC merger in October 2021 instead. In November 2023, it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

That path makes WeWork a hybrid case in this selection. Every other company here priced its shares and opened for trading through a conventional IPO. WeWork never set an offer price in 2019. It pulled the offering before any of its shares traded on an exchange.

A withdrawn IPO is a distinct outcome. A company preparing to go public in the U.S. files a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That document discloses the company's finances and business risks to potential investors. The company can still cancel the offering at any point before the shares are sold. WeWork took that step in 2019. Public investors had no WeWork stock to buy that year.

The company went public two years later by a different route. In October 2021, WeWork listed through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. A SPAC, also called a blank-check company, has no business operations of its own. It raises cash through its own IPO and then looks for a private company to combine with. When the merger closes, the private company takes over the listing and its shares begin trading publicly.

This route bypasses the traditional underwritten offering and its investor roadshow. The terms are negotiated between the shell company and the private business instead. SPAC shareholders can usually redeem their shares for cash before a merger closes. The private company never runs a separate public offering of its own.

WeWork's story as a public company then moved to bankruptcy court. In November 2023, roughly two years after the SPAC merger, it filed for Chapter 11. That chapter of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code lets a company keep operating while it reorganizes its debts and contracts under court supervision.

For WeWork, any answer to where the stock is now starts with that filing. Its path ran from a withdrawn IPO to a SPAC listing to Chapter 11 within about four years.

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Peloton went public in September 2019 at $29 a share, and the stock fell on its first day of trading. The connected-fitness company began public life below the price set before its shares opened.

Peloton makes an internet-connected stationary bike. Owners pay a separate subscription to stream workout classes on it. The company sells the equipment once and collects the subscription fee on a recurring basis.

That pairing of hardware and recurring fees was the business public investors were asked to price in September 2019. The offering required buyers to put a single value on both parts of the model.

The $29 offer price was fixed before any public trade took place. A decline on the first day showed that buyers in the open market would not pay that much once trading began. The market's answer arrived within a single session.

Buyers who waited for public trading could pick up shares below the IPO price on day one. The first public price for Peloton was set by those trades, not by the pre-listing deal.

A first-day decline is one data point from one session. On its own, it does not show how Peloton's shares traded in the months and years that followed.

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Rivian $RIVN priced its initial public offering at $78 a share in November 2021. The electric vehicle maker's stock rose sharply once trading began, then fell well below that offer price.

Rivian did not break issue at the start. Its path ran in reverse of a first-day decline. Investors who received shares at $78 held a gain in the opening stretch of trading. The decline came afterward, and it took the stock well under the IPO price.

The $78 price was available only to investors who received allocations in the offering itself. Anyone buying on the open market after trading began paid the market price instead. During the early surge, that market price sat above $78.

That split shaped who lost the most. Investors with offer-price allocations paid exactly $78 a share. Buyers who entered during the rise paid more than that.

Once the shares traded well below $78, both groups were holding losses. The buyers from the surge stood further from breaking even. They had started from a higher cost.

The early rally did not set a floor under the stock. It showed demand for Rivian shares at one point in time. Later trading repriced the shares below what offer-price investors had paid.