Airbnb Inc has priced its long-awaited initial public offering (IPO) above a marketed range to raise about US$3.5 billion, seizing on investor demand for a home-rental business roaring back from a COVID-19 pandemic-fueled slump.
Its IPO came just hours after DoorDash Inc almost doubled from its listing price in its debut trading session, adding to a flurry of consumer-facing Web-based companies going public this month.
Airbnb and its investors sold about 52 million shares on Wednesday for US$68 each after marketing them for US$56 to US$60 apiece, it said in a statement.
Photo courtesy of Perla Requejo, Reuters
At that price, Airbnb has a fully diluted value of about US$47 billion, which includes employee stock options and restricted stock units.
Airbnb’s listing adds to what was already a record year for IPOs, with more than US$163 billion raised on US exchanges, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That includes DoorDash’s US$3.37 billion offering.
Other companies lined up for IPOs this month include video-game company Roblox Corp, installment loans provider Affirm Holdings Inc and ContextLogic Inc, the parent of online discount retailer Wish Inc.
DoorDash’s first-day surge propelled its valuation, including employee stock options and restricted stock units, to about US$71 billion.
San Francisco-based Airbnb has seen a bounce back in domestic bookings since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic crushed demand.
In a letter to shareholders, the three cofounders said the 10 months since the pandemic started have been “the most defining period since we started Airbnb.”
In the past 13 years, Airbnb has totally upended the travel market, given people an opportunity for income and created a whole new market for services related to real estate and hosts.
Today, Airbnb is one of the biggest travel companies in the world.
For the first nine months of this year, Airbnb had a net loss of US$697 million on revenue of US$2.5 billion, compared with a net loss of US$323 million on revenue of US$3.7 billion for the same period last year, according to its filings.
Airbnb’s offering is being led by Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Shares of Airbnb were to begin trading yesterday on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the symbol ABNB.
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