Uber co-founder and former CEO Travis Kalanick plans to sell nearly a third of his stake in the ride-hailing service, a news report said Thursday.
The deal is part of a transaction with investors including Softbank Group Corp. and would bring Kalanick about $1.4 billion, Bloomberg reported, citing unidentified sources. It said Kalanick previously said he never had sold Uber shares.
Uber didn't respond to an email seeking comment.
Kalanick, who owns 10 percent of Uber, resigned as CEO last year following revelations of sexual harassment in the company, technological trickery designed to hinder regulators and a cover-up of a hacking attack that stole personal information of 57 million passengers and 600,000 drivers.Bloomberg said Kalanick offered to sell up to half his stake but reduced that to 29 percent due to limits in the agreement between Uber and the buyers.
Uber was valued around $68.5 billion during a 2016 capital investment, but that dropped to somewhere above $48 billion in the SoftBank deal announced last week.
Despite that, early investors stand to make significant gains. Even though they sold at roughly a 30 percent discount from what the shares were worth in 2016, those who invested early made nearly 100 times their initial stake, going from around 35 cents per share to just under $33, according to one investor who requested anonymity from the Associated Press because the sales are private.
The reasons for the discount are many, among them the seemingly endless string of scandals, lawsuits and fights that plagued Uber through almost all of 2017. Also, competition has gotten tougher from Lyft and Grab in the U.S. as well as Ola in India and several emerging services elsewhere.
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January 05, 2018
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