Airbnb resumes its IPO, wants to ring the bell by the end of the year

Airbnb

The vacation rental platform Airbnb is preparing its IPO by the end of the year and plans to submit the necessary documentation to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) throughout August, in a public offering led by Morgan Stanley and, in a somewhat more secondary role, Goldman Sachs, according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Tuesday.

In April, the CEO of the company, Brian Chesky, said in an interview that the company was working to present the documentation in March, but that the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on world tourism canceled those plans due to the uncertainty generated so much by the virus as by the volatility of the markets.

The American company had announced in September last year its intention to make its stock market debut during 2020. However, since the spring, Airbnb has managed to recover relatively quickly since, even though people decided not to travel, they continued to book houses close to their habitual residence through this portal, reaching the peak of 1 million nights billed on July 8 throughout the world, a figure that they had not recorded since March 3.

Airbnb’s IPO has been widely expected by analysts in recent years, who compare this movement with the IPOs of other firms of the so-called sharing economy, such as the transport companies with driver Uber or Lyft. The vacation rental platform was recently valued at about $ 18 billion, well below a previous estimate that put the company’s value at about $31 billion.

The San Francisco-based company is the largest vacation home rental platform in the United States and, if it goes public, it will join other companies that have also launched this year, such as Warner Music or Lemonade. that managed to carry out their public offering with relative success despite the pandemic.