The New York Stock Exchange is preparing to open a select members’ private club in a renovated Wall Street vault, just as a wave of historic IPOs is expected from America’s biggest tech companies — including SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI.
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is planning to open a private members’ club on Wall Street as it ramps up competition for some of the largest initial public offerings by US technology companies.
The world’s largest stock exchange is preparing for the summer opening of a new club, which will be open only by invitation. The club will be housed in a renovated vault that once housed stock certificates, according to two people familiar with the plans.
NYSE Group President Lynn Martin will have the final say on which of the financial stars will be on the board, one of the sources said. The NYSE did not want to comment on these allegations.
The opening of the club comes at a time when Wall Street is preparing for the expected initial public offerings of SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket company, as well as AI startups Anthropic and OpenAI, reports Investor me.
It is expected that these three companies, when they go public, could raise tens of billions of dollars. SpaceX’s IPO is expected as early as June, and the company could be valued at as much as $1.75 trillion, which would be the largest IPO of all time.
None of the three companies has yet said whether it plans to list on the NYSE, which took over the Intercontinental Exchange in 2013, or on Nasdaq, its technology-oriented rival. At stake in this battle are not only prestige and reputation, but also hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual listing fees.
“Historically, the biggest companies always wanted to be on the NYSE. That meant you were somebody,” said Joseph Saluzzi, partner and co-founder of Themis Trading.
Nasdaq, however, is trying to change the balance of power. Last month, it introduced sweeping changes to the methodology for including companies in its indexes, which would direct billions of dollars in passive investments to large new public companies that choose to list on that exchange.
Walmart’s decision to switch its listing from the NYSE to the Nasdaq last year made it the largest company, by market value, to switch from one stock exchange camp to another.
A person familiar with the situation said the NYSE’s plan to launch a private club is unrelated to this year’s big IPOs.
Private members’ clubs have been an important part of Wall Street culture for decades. For much of the 20th century, they offered martinis, consommé soups and quiet rooms to traders who wanted to make deals away from the din of the stock market, where financial contracts were once negotiated with loud shouts.
The famous Stock Exchange Luncheon Club, founded in 1898, was one of the favorite gathering places of stock traders until it closed in 2006. The club, illustratively, got its first women’s toilet only 89 years after its foundation. By the time of its shutdown, electronic trading had almost completely replaced face-to-face meetings and trading.
“It was high society and a big deal if you got invited. I wore a three-piece suit and polished shoes,” said Bill Singer, a former attorney for the American Stock Exchange who frequented the Luncheon Club during the 1980s.
“The food wasn’t memorable. The atmosphere was discreet, almost secretive. Henry Kissinger stopped by once,” Singer recalled.
Steven Blitz, chief US economist at TS Lombard, also visited the club as a guest in the late eighties.
“It was beautiful. Amazing light wood floors, deer heads on the walls, club sandwiches and fried chicken for lunch,” Blitz said.
New York’s financial center of gravity, however, has shifted over the last three decades from Wall Street in the financial district to Midtown, where today the headquarters of major institutions such as Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan are located.
In the same period, stock exchanges transformed from a place for matching buyers and sellers into companies that increasingly earn money from market data. The NYSE’s share of US equity trading has fallen sharply since the turn of the century, due to competition from new exchanges and private “dark pool” platforms for institutional investors. At the same time, changes in the way of working have almost erased the old culture of long, often alcohol-fueled business lunches.
That’s why the NYSE’s attempt to revive the spirit of the Luncheon Club and attract financiers from luxury clubs like the Colette Club and Amana uptown may have limited reach, according to Singer.
