American home and hotel rental giant Airbnb, plans to make its IPO registration public next week, preparing for a potential stock market debut next month, according to Reuters. The company making its previously confidentially filed IPO public, are signs that the proceedings could be going pretty well.
Airbnb had in August, confidentially filed for IPO paperwork with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The company was expected to go public much earlier but it was forced to delay its plans due to COVID-19 pandemic. Consdeiring the kind of numbers that Airbnb has been reporting, it has been a hugely anticipated IPO. Experts believe it could finally break the lull in tech IPO markets, which has seen multiple failed public offers off late.
The company had taken a hit due to the onset of the pandemic like many other companies in almost every sector. In May, Airbnb had to lay off 25% of its workforce in order to maintain stability when the effects of the crisis were very apparent. The drastic changes that the pandemic brought forced the company to focus on holiday home rentals instead of its usual focus on city apartments, as more and more of its customers were opting for holiday houses by ditching regular hotels.
Last month, the company received an IPO offer from the billionaire investor William Ackman, in which he proposed an IPO through a reverse merger with his blank-check company. Airbnb turned down his offer saying that they intend to go public through a traditional IPO.
If the home rental company proceeds with its plans accordingly, it will make its IPO filing public in this month. It is aiming for the Initial Public Offering in December, however, according to Reuters, the sources have cautioned that the timing is subject to market conditions. If all goes well, the company will join the likes of Warner Music Group, data analytics firm Palantir and data warehouse company Snowflake, which went public this year.
In July, Airbnb reported that customers had booked more than 1 million nights in a single day for the first time since March 3. The company’s plan to go public might turn out to be its biggest aid in its continued recovery from the Covid-19 crisis. The company could potentially achieve valuation of more than $30 billion in the IPO, which would be much higher than its recent estimated fair market value of its stock, which was $21 billion.
