Announced as the event of the year on Wall Street, the public offering of the chauffeur-driven car reservation platform closed with a loss of more than 7%.
–
Uber had a difficult first trading session on Friday, penalized by uncertainties surrounding the business model of online platforms for booking vehicles with drivers, which show significant losses.
The first order was given around 3:50 p.m. GMT at a price of $ 42 per share, three dollars less than the price set Thursday evening by the Californian company for its stock market baptism announced as the most important of the year in the United States. .
After reducing its losses somewhat, the title plunged again at the end of the session, ultimately losing 7.6% to close at 41.57 dollars. Big rival Lyft fell 7.41%.
“Demand has been weak and there is turbulence in the financial markets now,” a banking source, whose establishment is piloting the operation, told AFP.
The New York Stock Exchange was particularly volatile on Friday, hesitating between red and green, due to doubts over ongoing trade negotiations between the United States and China.
Uber, which raised $ 8.1 billion during this operation, was worth some 76 billion Friday evening, far from the 100 billion that were mentioned a few weeks ago.
The cold reception reserved for Uber is due to questions in financial circles about its profitability and is in line with the stock market woes of its rival Lyft, which has lost nearly 30% of its value since the start of its listing on March 29. .
Uber was targeting $ 3 billion in first-quarter revenue for a loss approaching $ 1 billion, according to stock documents.
«Impasse»
“Uber is losing money. It probably doesn’t mean anything to Silicon Valley but it does speak to Wall Street, ”commented Matthew Kennedy of Renaissance Capital, which manages ETF financial products backed by IPOs. “It’s a big disappointment”.
“I can not invest in car reservation services with driver given the economic context and especially because the autonomous car is in the rearview mirror,” said on Twitter Ross Gerber, co-founder of Investment Advisor, one of the financiers most influential in Silicon Valley. “We are skipping Uber and Lyft.”
To be profitable, Uber is diversifying, launching into the delivery of meals, scooters, bicycles … It has also embarked on the development of the autonomous car but this momentum was slowed down by a fatal accident in March 2018 in Arizona (southwest).
Its new credo: to become the Amazon of transport, but it is not the only one to display such ambitions that are also fueled by classic car manufacturers.
Consequently, many questions remain about its activity: competition, legal and regulatory threats and … the drivers, who went on strike and demonstrated in several American cities on Wednesday, arguing that the IPO would enrich the shareholders, without them getting a penny.
The founder dismissed
To maintain an attractive fare and attract customers and drivers, Uber has multiplied reductions, promotions, bonuses etc: this is also one of the causes of the financial haemorrhage that plagues the group since its inception.
“We want to improve the situation of our drivers,” Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO, told AFP on Friday to respond to the demands of the drivers, a small handful of whom came to demonstrate in front of the Stock Exchange building in southern Manhattan. .
After years of rapid but very eventful growth, marked by scandals that have permanently tarnished its image, the arrival on Wall Street of Uber, leader of the sector and famous brand in many regions of the world, is a test as well for the private chauffeur-driven vehicle (VTC) sector than for unicorns.
These are startups valued at at least a billion dollars but which, for many of them, struggle to make money. Since the beginning of the year, some have gone public with disparate results.
The IPO also looks like a moment of truth for Dara Khosrowshahi, appointed to restore the reputation of the group after the chaotic departure of its co-founder Travis Kalanick in 2017, and allow it to generate profits.
Aware of all these challenges, Uber has chosen to keep a low profile, setting its entry price on Thursday evening at $ 45 per share, the low end of the range of $ 44 to $ 50 provided in April.
“We want investors who bet for the long term,” Dara Khosrowshahi told CNBC television on Friday.
With a stock market valuation of around $ 76 billion, Uber remains close, according to the firm Dealogic, from Facebook when it went public on May 17, 2012 in terms of stock market valuation. The social network then made the largest introduction in terms of capitalization for an American company and the sixth globally.
If he was on the premises of the Stock Exchange, Travis Kalanick, the founder and former CEO pushed to resign by investors worried about the scandals, was not among the leaders who rang the bell marking the opening of the session on Wall Street.
From the floor, he watched, a frozen smile, his successor indulging in selfies on the platform just after having kicked off the exchanges of the day.
–
