Short-term rental company Airbnb on Wednesday filed a confidential bid for an initiative public offering at the Securities and Exchange Commission, setting the stage for one of the marquee stock market debuts of the year.
The number of shares to be offered and the price range for the IPO have not yet been determined, the company said.
“The initial public offering is expected to take place after the SEC completes its review process, subject to market and other conditions,” Airbnb added.
Reuters reported in October Airbnb was close to hiring Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs as joint lead advisers on their IPO, after the company announced plans to make it public in 2020.
The company’s plans to go public come at a time when its core rental business has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has forced millions of people to postpone their travel plans.
The collapse of its core home business caused Airbnb to suspend marketing activities for the year and cut about 25 percent of its workforce.
In a sign of an early recovery, however, the San Francisco-based launch in July said guests had booked more than 1 million nights in one day for the first time since March 3.
Airbnb’s decision to go public also comes at a time when US capital markets are in the midst of a resurgent recovery, with 2020 already one of the best years for public market debuts in decades.
In April, the company raised $ 2 billion in two rounds of investor debt.
One of the funding rounds included warrants that could be exercised at a valuation of $ 18 billion, well below the $ 26 billion that Airbnb quoted as an internal valuation in early March.
.
