While Uber has failed to provide any sort of returns to investors post-IPO, there is one early investort in Uber which reportedly recorded windfall gains. That investor is Goldman Sachs and the gains, according to CNBC, were so much so that it helped the bank beat analysts’ expectations for revenue in the period.
According to a person privy to the deal, Goldman Sachs sold its entire stake in ride-hailing giant Uber in the fourth quarter. The report further states, that Goldman Sachs may have sold at the earliest opportunity: Uber’s post-IPO lockup period for share sales ended in early November. That is also the time when founder Travis Kalanick started dumping most of his shares, reportedly getting over $400 million by selling just a part of his massive holdings.
A hint of this share sale could be traced back to Goldman Sachs’ CFO Stephen Scherr’s analyst briefing on Wednesday. He mentioned that Goldman took advantage of “harvesting opportunities” in the quarter by selling some of its holdings. The bank plans to continue to do that. It currently has over $2.4B in public company holdings.
There is no clear reason behind Goldman’s share dump. What is apparent though, is the fact that a subdued Uber IPO was already predicted by most analysts, and this could have further pushed Goldman to sell off stake and reap in profits. Uber had a disastrous IPO, with the shares debuting at a price lower than the listed. Since IPO, Uber’s share price has never gone up its pre-IPO pricing so far.
Goldman Sachs, which was an early investor in Uber, reportedly had over 10 million Uber shares till last year.
