Uber Looks To Raise $10 Billion In Biggest IPO Of The Year; Will Fully Disclose Financials For First Time

In what could be the biggest IPO of the year or one of the top 10 of all time, Uber Technologies Inc is going public with its IPO registration with the United States Securities and Exchange (USSE) on Thursday (11 April 2019) and will be available for trading in early May, reports The Economic Times. The company will be seeking to sell $10 Billion worth of stock in its offering.

This would be the first time Uber will publicly give a first complete look at the numbers and operations of its company which otherwise were only partial financial results over the years.

Uber will be seeking to sell $10 Billion worth of stock on the offering on Thursday where the company will issue most of the shares being sold while a smaller portion will be by investors cashing out.

The company is betting on its self-driving wing to attract investor attention. Full automation of its vehicles would enable the company to vastly improve its profit margins as it would also be earning the share of the fare previously going to the driver.

The IPO size can be the largest since that of the Chinese e-com giant Alibaba Holdings Group in 2014. The valuation of the company is speculated to be around $120 billion, being last valued at $70 billion in markets during Totyota Motor Corp’s investment.

The ride-hailing company recorded $50 billion in gross booking with a 45 per cent jump from 2017. Its revenue rose 2 per cent from 3rd quarter to post $3 billion while the year net revenue is $11.4 billion. The company posted losses of $1.8 billion for 2018 down 15 per cent from 2017 in US markets. It lost $3.3 billion excluding gains from selling its businesses in Russia and South-East Asia.

Uber was also mired in controversies over the past two years with sexual allegations from employees, concealing of the data breach that occurred at its data centres from authorities and allegations of bribes while expanding business overseas.