Trade could take some attention off Uber’s Wall Street debut, billed as the year’s most-hyped IPO.
The company will start trading on the New York Stock Exchange Friday with the ticker UBER.
Uber priced its initial public offering at $45 a share on Thursday. That’s at the low end of its original proposed price range of between $44 and $50 a share.
Still, the company will raise $8.1 billion and will rank among the largest US public offerings ever.
Uber’s aim for biggest tech IPO of year overshadowed by driver unrest
Uber’s main rival, Lyft, went public six weeks ago.
Even at the tamped-down price, Uber now has a market value of $82.4 billion — significantly more than century-old automakers General Motors and Ford Motor.
No matter how the stock swings, the IPO has to be considered a triumph for the company most closely associated with a ride-hailing industry that has changed the way millions of people get around while also transforming the way millions of more people earn a living in the gig economy.
The San Francisco company already has lost about $9 billion since its inception and acknowledges it could still be years before it turns a profit.
That sobering reality is one reason that Uber fell well short of reaching the $120 billion market value that many observers believed its IPO might attain earlier this year.
Another factor working against Uber is the cold shoulder that investors have been giving Lyft’s stock after an initial run-up. Lyft’s shares closed Thursday 23% below its IPO price of $72 in April.
