empty trading floor
Chinese stock traders work on the nearly empty trading floor at the Shanghai Stock Exchange in Shanghai 19 May 2006. China ended a year-long ban on initial public offerings (IPOs) 18 May, with the resumption of official share sales on its stockmarkets effective immediately after IPOs and additional share issues were suspended in April last year, as part of a plan to overhaul state enterprise ownership by selling down the government's holdings in listed companies and thereby boost the country's embattled securities markets.
MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty

Welcome back. 

We are in the final stretch. Only two weeks left in 2020. Here’s hoping things turn around in 2021. 

If you’re not yet a subscriber, you can sign up here to get your daily dose of the stories dominating banking, business, and big deals.

Like the newsletter? Hate the newsletter? Feel free to drop me a line at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanDeFrancesco. 

Inside a failed attempt to reinvent the IPO process with Airbnb and DoorDash

Airbnb IPO
The Airbnb logo is displayed on the Nasdaq digital billboard in Times Square in New York on December 10, 2020.
Photo by Kena Betancur/AFP/Getty Images

All eyes have been on the craziness of the IPO market. As a result, Dakin Campbell decided to take a look at how Airbnb and DoorDash, which both had huge first-day pops, used a relatively new process to go public.

Dakin spoke to nearly a dozen insiders about the hybrid model, which borrows elements from a traditional IPO and an auction.

Get the inside scoop on how it all went down, and why it didn't work how they planned. 

Click here to read the entire story.

Citigroup's new class of MDs includes a 32-year-old leading the data science efforts in its investment bank

Daniel Costanza Citigroup
Daniel Costanza is a newly-promoted managing director at Citigroup and leads the bank's capital markets advisory data science unit.
Citigroup

Citigroup has a new class of managing directors. Reed Alexander spoke to one of the new MDs who is focused on leading the firm's data science efforts within its investment bank. Read more here.

Chase is rolling out a virtual banking service in 2021 to 'meet clients where they are'

chase bank
A man rides a bike past a Chase bank branch in Manhattan on February 24, 2015 in New York City.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images

The future of bank branches seems very much up in the air. Carter Johnson spoke with an executive at Chase about a virtual banking service it is officially rolling out in 2021. And while it's not meant to replace branches, it is part of Chase's long-term plans. Read more here.

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has tapped Goldman Sachs to lead its upcoming IPO

brian armstrong coinbase
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong sits for a portrait in their San Francisco headquarters.
Christie Hemm Klok/Getty Images

Coinbase has confidentially filed paperwork to go public. Meghan Morris has the scoop on which bank is leading the process. Read more here.

Odd lots:

After the BuzzFeed-HuffPost deal, more digital media tie-ups could be coming, and SPACs are circling (BI)

'Flash Boys' Led Robinhood Founders to Hide How Firm Made Money (Bloomberg)

The CEO behind the largest SPAC deal to-date reveals why he deliberately over-hires, spends months training new staffers, and just made every employee a shareholder (BI)

See the pitch deck a psychedelics startup just used to raise $18.6 million to develop new treatments derived from the Sonoran Desert toad (BI)

Read the original article on Business Insider