Shares in Newsmax, the cable TV news outlet known for its sympathetic coverage of Donald Trump, soared more than 700% on their first day of trading.
The IPO was priced at $10 a share last Friday, with the offering netting $75 million after 7.5 million Class B shares went on sale. In February, Newsmax said it had completed a private preferred offering raising $225 million.
Monday’s price explosion, which triggered multiple halts in trading from the New York Stock Exchange, appeared to be caused by individual and retail investors looking to buy into Trump’s second term. Along with Trump loyalists, who have bought shares in his media company, parent of Truth Social, as well as right-leaning social outlet Rumble, Newsmax also generated considerable attention online.
At the end of its first frenzied day as a public company, Newsmax commanded a market valuation of more than $7 billion despite not being profitable and bringing in modest revenue. In a regulatory filing prior to the IPO, Newsmax reported nearly $80 million in total revenue for the first six months of 2024 (more than 60% of it from advertising), compared with about $135 million for all of 2023.
The IPO performance bucked a recent trend for IPOs, which have become rare as backers ride out market volatility. Reddit’s debut one year ago was one of the last strong showings by a company testing the public markets, but several high-flying new offerings expected at the start of 2025 are still on the sidelines.
Newsmax founder Chris Ruddy, a longtime friend of Trump’s, has described his news operation as “center-right,” but it has steadfastly backed the president, even when he made false claims about the 2020 election. Like Fox, Newsmax drew lawsuits from voting technology firms when it pushed the lie about the election having been stolen by Joe Biden, who defeated Trump. The company currently faces a suit by Dominion Voting Systems, the same company that reached a $787.5 million settlement with Fox. It settled with Smartmatic earlier this month, paying $40 million to resolve defamation claims.
“I think there was a demand for more competition against Fox,” Ruddy told CNBC on Monday. He founded Newsmax as a digital outlet. In 2014, the year pay-TV subscriptions began their long decline, the company debuted its flagship cable TV network, which has consistently ranked No. 4 in viewership behind Fox, CNN and MSNBC, according to Nielsen.
