Uber, the mobility company best known for its halfway between taxis and chauffeur-driven car rentals, went public on Friday valuing the company at $ 82.4 billion – one of the largest American companies on the stock exchange. With the IPO, the operation run by banks and specialized companies with which the shares of a company are sold to a narrow audience for the first time, Uber has placed 180 million shares on the market, setting the price at 45 dollars each and collecting 8.1 billion dollars. Previously, only the Chinese ecommerce site AliBaba, with 26 billion, and Facebook, with 17 billion, had done better of the technology companies.
In the early stages of free trading, however, the share price was lower than Uber's $ 45 set, opening at $ 42. In its valuation, the company had stayed in the low end of the range it initially indicated, between $ 44 and $ 50. According to analysts, it was a choice aimed at avoiding the end of Lyft, another company that offers a similar service and which went public in late March: after an initial valuation of more than 78 dollars, the shares of Lyft have lost a third of their value. Lyft, which is smaller than Uber but growing fast, had raised over two billion by going public.
Since its founding in 2009, Uber has made the fortune of initial investors and has undergone many recapitalisations, but has never been able to go positive and perhaps never will. In all, the company lost $ 9 billion and continues to be in the negative, despite posting a 42 percent increase in revenue last year. The company has long insisted that its future will include several activities in multiple sectors that relate to mobility: for example, it is experimenting in the field of self-driving cars, and has a home food delivery business, Uber Eats. .
