Back when Spotify Technology SA was only a few years old, I visited the cramped offices of French music startup Believe SA, which had the promising pitch of one day becoming a digital record label for the streaming era. The bet paid off: The company listed on the Paris stock market a decade later in 2021 at a €1.9 billion ($2 billion) valuation, and was hailed by the French government as an example of how its tech scene could hold its own against the likes of the US.
Only three years on, the story is nearing a sorry end. Believe’s co-founder Denis Ladegaillerie is moving to take the company private, with the backing of investment funds EQT AB and TCV, at €15 a share, or approximately 23% below its initial public offering (IPO). The scale of the stock’s underperformance stands out — as low as that bid looks, it’s almost 30% above where the stock was a week ago. So does the speed at which Ladegaillerie and his fellow insiders (representing about 70% of the share capital) are looking to whisk the company away from the harsh glare of the public markets. Believe hasn’t even reached the end of its 2022-2025 IPO-funded growth plan.