Wayfair Files for IPO, Plans to Become Single Letter Ticker Symbol

Online home products retailer Wayfair plans to launch IPO that will raise $350 million in its debut. The company, backed by PE sponsors, also plans to join the select ranks of companies that trade under a single-letter ticker designation, as it plans to adopt the symbol W as its trading nomenclature. Right now twenty one of the twenty six letters of the alphabet have been coined as ticker symbols, so the Wayfair debut will shrink that pool of available one letter symbols to just four. Wayfair has had some constructive results, doubling its sales in the first half of this year, though it's got some ground to cover to match Zillow, the last one letter symbol.