Utah Jazz owner Ryan Smith leads Qualtrics IPO as team tops

On Wednesday night, Ryan Smith, the new owner of the Utah Jazz, celebrated his team’s 10th consecutive victory, which catapulted the team to first place over the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Western Conference.

Then he woke up and rang the Nasdaq virtual bell.

Smith, 42, made his Qualtrics software company public on Thursday, taking it out of SAP. It was a long-awaited moment for Smith, who was just about to lead Qualtrics through an IPO at the end of 2018, when SAP came in at the last minute with an offer of $ 8 billion. The company is now worth more than $ 27 billion.

The deal marks an unforeseen event for Smith. He invested $ 120 million in the offer, buying 6 million shares for $ 20 a piece, which ended up being a 33% discount on the offer price. That stake is now valued at over $ 273 million. Qualtrics jumped 52% to $ 45.50 on the first day of trading.

It was quite a start until 2021 for Smith. A lifelong Jazz fan, Smith found himself unlikely to buy the team for $ 1.6 billion last year from the Miller family, which has owned the franchise for 36 years. He sat in the yard for years and was intimately involved in the team, sponsoring the patch uniform with his Five for the Fight campaign to fund cancer research.

The Jazz started with a mediocre start when they started the season last month, but the team is now 14-4 after beating the Dallas Mavericks by 12 points Wednesday night, even with top scorer Donovan Mitchell eliminated. Smith participated along with a number of fans, who must remain socially distanced due to Covid-19 restrictions. Viewers saw the Qualtrics logo scattered across parts of the Vivint Arena in Salt Lake City.

After the game, Smith awarded head coach Quin Snyder the game ball for training in the 500th game of the regular season.

“This is my night job,” Smith told CNBC in an interview Thursday before Qualtrics began trading. He acknowledged that between basketball and business, “I had a good race.”

Smith is still the president of Qualtrics, but handed over the title of CEO to Zig Serafin, who joined the company in 2016. Smith’s family owned 40% of Qualtrics when SAP bought it, making him a billionaire. Now it’s the second race. (SAP still owns more than 80% of its shares after the division.)

Qualtrics develops cloud-based software that helps companies stay in touch with their customers, monitor how they use their products, and make improvements along the way based on data and analysis. The company has expanded its customer base to about 13,000 from 9,000 two years ago. Revenues rose by more than 30% in the first three quarters of 2020 to $ 550 million, from $ 413.4 million in the same period last year.

A notable client is the NBA – and this relationship predates Smith’s ownership of Jazz. According to the Qualtrics leaflet, the NBA uses technology to help design its digital tools in ways that are interesting to fans and to “get information about the emotions and feelings of fans and the experience of NBA League Pass subscribers.”

Since last year, with the outbreak of the coronavirus and the subsequent closure of the league, Qualtrics has worked with the NBA to turn its Orlando balloon into a pleasurable spectator experience, as well as to keep players, employees and staff safe. and health.

“We use Qualtrics a ton to help test and track Covid,” Smith said.

– CNBC’s Alex Sherman contributed to this report

CLOCK: CNBC interview with Qualtrics co-founder Ryan Smith and CEO Zig Serafin

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