Two high profile companies in the internet world Pinterest and Uber which plans to go public this year have shortlisted the New York Stock Exchange to list their stocks as per sources. Uber which is a global transport company looking at a valuation of $120 billion and is valued by private markets at $76 million is planning to go public this April. Pinterest is an image website which is popular for photos of food, fashion, etc. is valued in the market at $12 billion with an active user count of 250 million monthly.
The road to Uber, Pinterest IPO:
Uber technologies had earlier filed in confidentiality for an initial public offering which as per internal sources is the biggest for the year and among the top 5 all-time biggest IPO offering. Though there is no single lead banker helping for the sale of shares, Morgan Stanley has helped the company write the prospectus for the IPO. In its effort to go public the company had earlier in the week hired many underwriters to make its debut. The banks that are currently working are the Bank Of America, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Barclays Plc, Allen and company, and JMP Securities. Apart from these banks Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have been leading the public offerings underwriting since last year.
Pinterest has also sought to increase the pace at which it is making its IPO as the company is looking to make inroads into the market which is on a high. The company submitted its IPO documents confidentially to the Securities and Exchange Commission is preparing itself to go public as early as possible and list its shares.
Why is NYSE the preferred over NASDAQ?
Both NYSE and NASDAQ are rivals and competitors who compete to get the listings of the big companies even before they go public much like other sectors. Technology companies who have made it big in the e-commerce world prefer NYSE over NASDAQ in the last few years after the Facebook IPO blunder. There were many technological errors during the launch of its IPO due to which big companies have moved to NYSE. NASDAQ had earlier scored a point over NYSE as another ride-hailing company Lyft which went public last week listed its stocks in NASDAQ. The valuation of this company can be more than $23 billion and is one of the high profile public debuts that could kick-start the year and bring more value to the IPO market.
