EXp World Holdings announced at the close of the market Tuesday that its board of directors approved a 2-for-1 stock split, essentially doubling the number of company shares while splitting its value in half.
Glenn Sanford | Photo credit: eXp World Holdings
The goal, the company said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, is to make stock ownership more obtainable for employees and investors in a year that’s seen the company’s share price skyrocket.
“Our decision to effectuate this stock split provides added flexibility to continue leveraging various stock programs for our agents, brokers and staff that help fuel our growth,” Glenn Sanford, the founder, chairman and CEO of eXp World Holdings, said in a statement.
“With the continued success of the company, we believe this stock split represents another positive milestone in eXp’s growth trajectory,” Sanford added. “As always, we’re focused on innovation and delivering on our overall value proposition for our agents, brokers, staff and customers.”
EXp World Holdings, the parent company of the virtual cloud-based real estate brokerage eXp Realty and virtual world platform VirBELA, opened the year with its stock trading at around $11 per share. In the past six months alone the company’s share value has ballooned to more than $79 per share.
The share price even crossed the $80 per share threshold in aftermarket trading on the back of the news that the company would be splitting its stock.
EXp World Holdings has been publicly traded for a number of years but only began trading on NASDAQ in May 2018.
The company is one of a few real estate firms to offer its agents a chance at gaining equity. The company, in 2018, overhauled its agent stock program offering agents a set dollar amount worth of shares instead of a certain number of shares when they hit certain milestones.
Each company stockholder of record on Jan. 29, 2021, will receive one additional share of common stock for each held stock, to be distributed at the close of trading on Feb. 12, 2021. EXp World Holdings will begin trading on a stock split-adjusted basis starting Feb. 16, 2021.
Splitting stock prices is common for a company that’s seen its value explode in a short time. Tesla, for example, announced a five-to-one stock split earlier this year. In 2015, Zillow split its stock on roughly a three-to-one basis, creating a new class of common stock.
