Lyft sets $62-68 price range for its IPO to raise $2B, will trade as LYFT on Nasdaq

Ride-sharing startup Lyft this morning announced that it is kicking off the roadshow for its IPO — setting the clock ticking for its IPO likely in around two weeks. Around that, it also filled in some more details. The stock will trade as “LYFT” on Nasdaq and the IPO range is currently set for between $62 and $68 per share to raise $2 billion from 30,770,000 shares of Class A common stock.

Lyft also said in its updated S-1 that at the high end of the range, the maximum offering aggregate price — the maximum that it would raise at that range — will be $2,406,214,000 when considering the full range of Class A stock that will be registered, 35,385,500 shares.

In addition to the 30,770,000 shares of Class A common stock, the company said it has an additional 4,615,500 shares in options for the underwriters, adding up to the 35 million share figure. 

J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC, Jefferies LLC, UBS Securities LLC, Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Incorporated, RBC Capital Markets, LLC and KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc. are book-running managers for the offering, the company added.

The news kicks off the timer on Lyft’s public listing at a time when all eyes are on how ride-sharing companies, which are growing fast (Lyft took $8.1 billion in bookings and made $2.1 billion in revenues in 2018, covering 30.7 million riders and 1.9 million drivers), remain unprofitable. The company posted a net loss of $911.3 million in 2018, a figure that has grown in line with revenues, but notably shrunk proportionately (for example, in 2016, revenues were $343.3 million while net loss was $682 million).

This public listing provides a road map for how they can continue to fund their operations and growth while providing liquidity for investors as they continue working on getting into the black.

More to come.