SPIE

The European edition of the Fortune 500, ranking companies by revenue.

Fortune 500 Europe

The first-ever European edition of the Fortune 500, ranking companies by revenue. 

F500 Europe SPIE Employee working for SPIE

SPIE ranks 384 with $8.6 billion in revenue (up 3.1%). The France-headquartered diversified outsourcing services company has 48,073 employees and made a profit of $160 million (down 20.3%).

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Get insights into SPIE including business profile, stock information, news, and rankings from Fortune.

SPIE Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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SPIE | Fortune

SPIE Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings | Fortune

SnapChat's CEO says the company plans to IPO soon. Problem is, in 2015, IPO's are as rare as unicorns. Robert, is this an ominous sign? Well hold up right there. Let's get one thing straight. Unicorns Unicorns are far from rare. That's true. On Fortune's Unicorn List, which documents companies that are worth $ 1 billion or more, we've got about 100 nowadays. What is rare is having a unicorn company have an exit, make an IPO, have some kind of deal where the investors can make out. Be acquired. Sure Exactly. I don't think this is a problem. I think that the private markets are flush with cash. There's no reason for these companies to go public yet. See, to me, this is a huge problem. I mean, it's not a problem today, it's not a problem tomorrow, but it's definitely a long term problem. Look, venture capitalists invest money hoping that it'll come back, right? It's a cycle. And if all of their money is getting absorbed into these so called unicorns More and more money as they get bigger and bigger and bigger. None of that money's coming back. They can't reinvest it, they can't profit from it. This is a long term cash flow problem. People are comparing this year to last year and raising alarms because of it. Last year, investors made out with a bunch of money, there were a bunch of exits they made about 30 billion by this point in time. That's true. And in this year they've only made about 1. 5 billion in unicorn exits and that was from Lynda being purchased by LinkedIn. Exactly. But I don't think this is any cause for alarm. I mean they made out so well last year that these things move in cycles and it's gonna be okay. But you gotta. There's no reason for these companies to go public. Look, you've gotta look at it from the company's perspective too. This is a little bit of a concern in the long term strategy of the company. If you are absorbing all of this money and your valuation keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger, you're kind of pricing yourself out of the reach of suitors so that you're only left with the largest tech companies that can acquire you. And if you go to the public markets you're kinda making the bet that, it's not gonna be a disappointment when you finally IPO. So I think this is also a concern for them, too. To return to your first point though about SnapChat now sort of talking about how an IPO is inevitable. Right now their valued at about 15 billion dollars. When Twitter went public a few years ago, they were valued at 14 billions dollars, now their worth 24 billion and they seem to be doing okay. So this is perfectly in line with past tech IPO's and seems perfectly reasonable for the public markets .>> That's a fair point. For one show that's always exiting in style, come to Fortune. com for more tech debate.

Snapchat has revealed intentions to IPO, but Fortune's Andrew Nusca and Robert Hackett note the lack of startups making big exits—and discuss whether it matters to the industry.

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