Uber IPO Priced at $45 per Share
On Thursday, May 10th, the taxi company “Uber” revealed the per share price of their IPO. It will be listed at $45.00, this being the low end of the standard range. This IPO Listing means that the company will be valued at $75.5 Billion, making them the most valuable companies to ever go public in history. When you account for a fully diluted basis, Uber has a market valuation listed at $82.4 Billion. As it stands, they are one of the top-ten highest valued companies in the world.
Reports suggest that this transport network company was seeking $120 Billion as a valuation, with shares ranging between $45 and $50. Currently, there are 180 million shares of common stock available for investors to purchase. That means the company, once all shares are sold, can raise $8.1 Billion from their IPO.
Uber is one of the largest companies to ever come out of Silicon Valley, rivalling Space X and Tesla. They changed the name of the game with transportation services, creating an on-demand network that is now available throughout the globe. Numerous other companies have tried to follow their business models, such as Lift or SkipTheDishes. However, none of them has been able to compete against the powerhouse that is Uber.
Furthering the claim that Uber is the leader of the on-demand transportation service industry is a report released at the end of 2018. The company during 2018 had a 43% increase in revenue when compared to 2017. They earned $11.3 Billion in 2018 while in 2017 they earned only $2.6 Billion. This is an incredible jump in profits for any company.
This profit wasn’t enough to fund the rapid expansion of the company though. As such, they’ve raised $24 Billion from numerous investors since they opened ten years ago. The company is expected to have substantial portions of its shares bought out by companies like Toyota or Alphabet. Currently, the biggest shareholder in Uber is “SoftBank”, who invested $8 Billion years ago. SoftBank owns 16.% of this company to date.
Shawn Carolan, a Menlo Ventures Investor & Partner with Uber, commented on the IPO announcement, saying: “Uber is a great reminder to venture capitalists that the biggest opportunities lie in our most common needs as humans. When a start-up presents, look beyond the current product, which often feels trivial, to the underlying need being served. On-Demand black car service was easy to dismiss, but nearly everyone needs transportation.”
Uber’s Management Changes
For the last two years, the company has been undergoing severe management changes. The Co-Founder of Uber in 2017, Travis Kalanick, was removed from the company by stockholders and replaced by Dara Khosrowshahi. Currently, the new CEO of Uber is working to make their service the leading form of public transportation across major cities in the United States of America and the European Union.
Personal mobility & transportation will always remain as their core business. Currently, they operate in 63 countries across the globe in 700 cities. Their revenue streams are some of the most diversified for any company in the world. They’ve expanded their services to car rentals, food delivery and freight delivery. They have even begun to develop air taxies and driverless Uber’s. There is no limit to what Uber can accomplish, and in another decade, they could be a leading force in every subsidiary industry for global transportation.
