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Lyft prices stock at $72, shares begin trading

March 29, 2019

Human cloud/ride-sharing firm Lyft on Thursday evening priced its stock at $72 per share, valuing the company at more than $20 billion and higher than its initially expected price of $62 to $68. The stock debuted this morning on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol “LYFT.” However, Reuters reported shares today were seen opening 19.4% higher at $86.00 in the first IPO of a ride-hailing startup.

The company ranks as the third-largest B2C human cloud platform with estimated human cloud gross spend of $5.26 billion in 2017 (note: this is not total sales for the company), according to Staffing Industry Analysts’ report “The Gig Economy and Human Cloud Landscape: 2018 Update.” Only Uber and China-base ride hailing firm Didi Chuxing are larger.

Some analysts have said the offering is already oversubscribed and Lyft’s valuation could go higher, Business Insider reported.

“The ridesharing industry has become one of the most transformational growth sectors of the US consumer market over the past five years with Lyft establishing itself as a clear No. 2 player behind the worldwide leader Uber,” said Daniel Ives, managing director of equity research at Wedbush Securities, in a note to clients on Wednesday.

Ives also noted, “There are also a number of risks/uncertainty that we see in the crystal ball for Lyft including: competitive pressures, lack of a path to profitability in the near-term, regulatory uncertainty and positioning within the next generation autonomous driving arms race.”