Nasdaq Private Market (NPM), a leading provider of secondary liquidity solutions, announced it has officially launched SecondMarket™ Employee Direct to support company-approved shareholders when they sell their hard-earned equity. More than 200,000 eligible private company employees and investors have previously leveraged NPM to execute their shares within company-sponsored tenders. Now, employees can come to SecondMarket™ Employee Direct to execute shares for a low 1% fee per transaction.

SecondMarket™ Employee Direct features transparent, intuitive secondary trading tools, and insights that will help simplify the process of selling private shares for millions of private company employees worldwide. The company’s industry-disruptive technology powers the platform that serves the urgent liquidity needs of employee shareholders as they build wealth. Whether employees participate in a company-sponsored tender or sell equity directly via SecondMarket™ Employee Direct, these transactions are a powerful catalyst for better financial futures for private company employees.

SecondMarket™ enables private company employees to access liquidity for their equity shares via an intuitive, electronic, self-service platform connected to a broad network of active institutional buyers. Users of the platform have access to real-time pricing data on hundreds of leading private companies and can view existing bids and offers to help assess the current market value of their shares.

SecondMarket™ Employee Direct empowers private company employee sellers to transact for a flat 1% commission fee, a fraction of what is charged by other platforms.

Within the platform, private company employees:

• Easily upload and verify private share holdings.
• Research and estimate the value of shares with powerful data aggregated from multiple public sources.
• Anonymously negotiate orders with buyers, then electronically match and accept bids.
• Seamlessly secure company approval as well as transfer and settle shares between buyers and sellers.
• Streamline transfer of funds directly to personal banking or wealth accounts.
• Receive required tax documentation for end-of-year reporting.

“Private company employees are the heroes of innovation in today’s global economy. NPM believes they should be celebrated and rewarded, especially at the critical times in their lives when raising liquidity is a priority,” said Tom Callahan, Chief Executive Officer, Nasdaq Private Market. “SecondMarket™ Employee Direct brings cutting-edge technology and data to the opaque, obscure world of private share trading with a low, flat, fair 1% fee. You worked hard to earn your equity. Shouldn’t you keep more of it?”

In line with NPM policies, if companies do not permit share transfers, SecondMarket™ will not execute trades. Data privacy is a priority at NPM, and all systems are managed to ensure trade data is protected and exclusively available to transacting parties only.

Source: Nasdaq Private Market