(Bloomberg) -- The New York Stock Exchange set a reference price of $26 per share for trading in workplace messaging application Slack Technologies Inc.

The number is in line with the volume weighted average price at which the stock has been changing hands in the private markets. Slack said in a filing last month that number was $26.82 for May, a slight increase from $25.91 in April.

Slack is skipping the traditional route to go public -- through an initial public offering -- and instead choosing to trade shares directly on the exchange on Thursday. Though the unusual method means the company isn’t raising new money, it also avoids the costly underwriting fees paid to multiple banks on IPOs. Instead, Slack chose three advisers that have helped determine the reference price, and will tomorrow choose when and at what price to open the shares.

Though the reference price is partly based on where the shares have most recently changed hands in private transactions, it doesn’t correlate to the opening price or valuation in the same way as an offer price in a traditional IPO.

Slack, which people with knowledge of the process said last week could be valued at as much as $17 billion in the listing, will trade under the ticker WORK.

To contact the reporters on this story: Eric Newcomer in San Francisco at enewcomer@bloomberg.net;Sonali Basak in New York at sbasak7@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Mark Milian at mmilian@bloomberg.net, ;Michael J. Moore at mmoore55@bloomberg.net, Elizabeth Fournier

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