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Newsmax (NYSE:NMAX) just pulled off one of the most explosive IPO debuts in recent memoryclosing at $82.25 after pricing at just $10. That's a staggering 720% pop on day one, giving the conservative media company a $10 billion-plus valuation right out of the gate. Founder and CEO Christopher Ruddy, who still controls 81% of the voting power, instantly became a billionaire many times over, with his stake now worth more than $3.3 billion. Newsmax, which started as a digital news site in 1998 before going cable in 2014, now reaches 57 million homes and is positioning itself as a serious challenger to Fox News in the cable space.
The investor lineup reads like a billionaire club: Interactive Brokers (NASDAQ:IBKR) founder Thomas Peterffy owns a $1.9 billion stake, Qatari royal Sheikh Sultan bin Jassim Al-Thani holds nearly 20 million shares, and Ukrainian industrialist Vadim Shulman is in the mix too. Even with a $72 million loss last year on $171 million in revenue, investors clearly aren't in it for the current numbersthey're betting big on future media disruption. To put things in context, Fox Corp (NASDAQ:FOX)with Fox News under its beltposted $2.4 billion in profit on $6.5 billion revenue last year and trades at roughly $25 billion in market cap. That makes Newsmax's $10B+ tag punchybut not impossible, especially in a media landscape hungry for alternatives.
This IPO is more than just a financial milestoneit's a cultural signal. A right-leaning news network with deep-pocketed backers just got a public ticker and a Wall Street spotlight. Ruddy, a former journalist with degrees from St. John's and LSE, has now built a company investors are willing to value like a tech growth story. The next phase? Converting all that political heat and fresh capital into a business model that can scaleand sustain. Because while IPO day fireworks are fun, the real test comes when the buzz fades and the quarterly results roll in.
This article first appeared on GuruFocus.