Ready For Lyft Off?
Houston we are almost ready for Lyft off! After months of hype and intense rivalry in the ride-hailing space, Lyft is finally ready to take centre stage for what is likely to be a blockbuster Initial Public Offering (IPO). Who’s excited?
Tomorrow marks D-Day for what is set to be a serious spectacle in the markets. The IPO arms race in the ride-hailing space, fuelled by the 35 day government shutdown’s delay, has certainly upped the ante for investors who most likely won’t be blinking for the next two days for fear of missing the action.
Just two days into the company’s roadshow last week, investors were clamouring to get their hands on the red hot shares, eventually pushing the IPO into oversubscribed territory. Off the charts demand moved its underwriters to upgrade its price range target from $62-$68 per share to a whopping $70-$72 ahead of tomorrow’s listing.
This places the IPO in the ballpark of a $24.7bn valuation, making it the largest listing of 2019 by some distance. This number, however, is dwarfed by the estimated $120bn forecast for Uber’s IPO in April, for which Lyft’s listing will be an important precursor.ย
Even though the offering is oversubscribed and attracting major attention, that is still no basis for assuming it will come out of the blocks with a big day in the green tomorrow. Both Facebook and Snap were similarly oversubscribed, but remained far below their listing prices for quite some time. Levi’s on the other hand blew investors away with a 31% appreciation.
So at this point the outcome is anyone’s guess, but what we know for sure is Invstr will be offering Lyft in the app from Monday and its IPO is going to be one heck of an event!