Highly anticipated IPOs in 2019.
Headlining the list of upcoming 2019 IPOs is Uber, the world’s preeminent ride-hailing company. After hiring Merrill Lynch CFO Nelson Chai. Uber filed to go public confidentially with the Securities and Exchange Commission in early December and is racing rival Lyft to Wall Street; Uber is expected to go public in the first half of 2019.
Lyft isn’t just racing Uber to adopt self-driving cars, dramatically reduce labor costs and magically breakeven – it’s racing Uber to tap the public coffers, and the Lyft IPO is also expected in the first half of 2019. In fact, both ride-hailing competitors confidentially filed to go public on the same day in December.
Wu of KCI thinks these two will bring the most excitement in 2019.
Airbnb is reportedly considering a “direct listing,” cutting out Wall Street underwriters and selling shares directly to the public. Airbnb , the nimble, profitable, room-listing platform with famously little overhead and a $31 billion valuation is one of two upcoming IPOs in 2019 connected to Peter Thiel.
This year really should be chock-full of highly anticipated IPOs, as every company not yet public is rushing to go public by year’s end. Slack, the workplace messaging app, seems to be openly prepping for an IPO, hiring Goldman Sachs for lead underwriting duties in December 2018.
Palantir also makes the cut as one of 2019’s top upcoming IPOs. Co-founded by Thiel, some of Palantir’s largest customers are governments and intelligence agencies, and the company reportedly played a major role in the 2011 capture of Osama bin Laden. Palantir consulted with Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley about an IPO, getting estimated valuations as high as $41 billion.
Says Wu “ There are many others too many to list but we are looking forward to all of them as this is the (year of the IPO), so they say”.
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