Lyft , America’s second biggest ride sharing service, went public on the Nasdaq on Friday.
The company priced its IPO at $72 a share on Thursday, valuing it at around $24 billion, close to 10 times the value of rental giant Avis Budget.
Uber is expected to file its own initial public offering later this year. Both Lyft and Uber IPOs are seen as helping the transportation giants expand into new markets like autonomous cars and bike sharing.
Lyft has set up a dual-class share system that grants its founders, Logan Green and John Zimmer, more control relative to other shareholders. The structure gives the founders 10 votes for every share, meaning that the two control 49% of voting shares while only owning around 5% of shares overall. Usually the dual-class system can potentially be justified when a company is in the founder stage, where the role of the founder is very critical to the survival and development of the company, but beyond the initial stage dual class structure hinders long term out performance.
Lyft’s revenue was $2.2 billion for 2018, a 103 percent increase over the previous year, but the company operated with heavy losses, posting a loss of $911 million for 2018, according to the filings.
Uber, a larger company with a more diverse set of businesses, needs several more weeks for its IPO preparations. A high valuation for Lyft would be in favor of Uber.
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