Uber Technologies Inc., the ride-hailing company, filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission, secretly for a public offering for the next year. Uber is competing with a small company called Lyft Inc., which had already filed for the S-1, to be the first one in the market next year. The exact detail of Uber’s filing was not available immediately, but Uber could co to the public at a valuation of $120 billion.
2019 is expected to be a record-breaking year for market debut leaving behind the dot-com boom of 2000. Both Uber and Lyft have changed the way of transportation radically. They have been successful in expanding their business into other services as well such as food delivery and bike sharing. Uber is unlikely to mention their successful endeavors in their side projects to their potential investors. Lyft is a small company operating only within the U.S. However, neither Uber nor Lyft is a profitable company.
Its third-quarter loss widened to $1.07 billion amid a sales gain of 38% to $2.95 billion, and Lyft had a loss of $254 million on sales of $563 million. Lyft has raised $5.1 billion to date, compared with about $20 billion for Uber. Mr. Khosrowshahi and Uber are expecting that if this deal goes through, it can actually push up valuation in the offering. Mr. Khosrowshahi is the newly appointed competent CEO of Uber.
Uber was involved in a fatal accident in 2017 when one of their self-driving cars crashed. They are still investing in its self-driving car division. Following the incident, Uber has taken the robotic vehicles off the roads and closed its operations in Arizona and laid off some workers in other places. It has a pending application to return the high-tech autos to streets in Pennsylvania. Considering all of the disasters, investors and executives have urged the CEO of Uber to dispose of the department.
