> Each investor will need to figure out listing, trading, clearing and settlement, et cetera mostly on their own. I would think at a minimum Spotify would conv

> Each investor will need to figure out listing, trading, clearing and settlement, et cetera mostly on their own. I would think at a minimum Spotify would convert all equity holders to common stock and would register the shares with the appropriate clearinghouse depending on where they were listing. Even if they didn't register with an exchange they could be be traded over the counter. More likely they would register with an exchange and take care of those mechanical details for their investors. The real risk here is that they list but don't get any analyst coverage and no one wants to act as a market maker for the stock initially. Analyst coverage is part of the quid pro quo for an IPO, and companies typically want to see analyst coverage of past IPO clients, with BUY ratings on those stocks. Personally I don't think coverage commitments matter that much. Modern markets are price efficient. Spotify is big enough that they would get coverage and market makers without paying the IPO tax. And they can do a much cheaper follow-on offering after the shares have been public, with greater certainty as to the price. For smaller companies it's much easier to languish without anyone paying attention to your stock, and this would be much riskier.