Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. All right, there's a new kid on the block. And then well it started training. Today, it's time for our Stock of the Hour and we're taking a look at shares of waste Star, the fourth biggest IPO of the year and largest by a US based company. The shares pricing at twenty one to fifty last night. They did open below that, trading below that now down about three percent here on the day. It's a healthcare payment software maker, and the CEO of that
company joins us right now. Great to have you here on the program. Let's talk a little bit in Matt Hawkins. I'm getting ahead of myself here.
Thanks Matt.
Great to have you here on the program.
Delighted to be here.
First of all, congratulations. I mean, it's always a feat to bring anything to market, particularly in this environment where it's been a lot harder for IPOs to sort of get traction here. Why did you feel it was appropriate for you to come to market now?
We feel like we're building a durable, high growth, highly visible business and it's a testament to the work that we do with over a million providers who use our software across every setting. Of care. We feel like coming to market now gives us more awareness of who we are in visibility to our company. The value that we bring to providers gives us a sense of credibility as we work to establish trust with the clients with whom we serve. And then certainly it's helped us improve our
capital structure. We were able to delever the business through the proceeds of the IPO. Our investors are in the business and along the journey with us, believe in what we're building. We were fortunate to add a number of additional investors through this process, so we're thrilled.
You have a lot more investors here. I mean, it's a lot different being a public You have a lot more people you have to answer to, and that gets to be a little bit of a grind versus being a public company. Talk to me about the growth strategy. This is a company that had at least last year roughly allowed eight hundred million in sales. What is the growth plan the growth story that you're pitching to investors.
Healthcare is such an important category for all of us. The pains that we're helping provider organizations to resolve as they use our cloud based software platform that by the way, has artificial intelligence throughout our platform to automate work, to prioritize and organize work, and to create operating efficiency. We tell that message to clients and potential clients and we show them a real way to create lasting return on investment.
And we're fortunate we have referenceable clients. We serve over a million providers across every setting of care, and we're market leaders and client satisfaction, So all those things contribute to strong win rates, long relationships with clients, and that becomes an important part of our growth story.
EQT is still going to be our largest shareholder, about a twenty nine percent stake. Also, kind of the pension p on investment board Bane Capital of Francisco partners, how much of us, say are they going to have on day to day operations and how much are they going to want to see a return.
We have fabulous investors. They are on our board of directors. But from the very outset EQT, who I'm very appreciative of partnering with, they have asked us to behave as though we're a public company. So we've had a number of independent board members join our board prior to this event, and we govern ourselves accordingly. So while they have a say, they're wonderful thought partners and they trust us to lead and guide the business.
All right, well, Matt, once again congratulations and pulling this off in a week where there was a lot of noise, a lot of distractions, and some of the other big IPOs didn't manage to do it this week. So that is Matt Hawkins, CEO of now Public Wastetar