| To: Glenn Petersen who wrote (189) | 11/23/2020 4:21:43 PM | | From: Glenn Petersen | | | | U.S. federal government awards transportation contract to Uber, Lyft
By Tina Bellon
Reuters
November 23, 2020
(Reuters) - Uber Technologies Inc and Lyft Inc have been awarded a federal contract worth up to $810 million to offer their ride-hail services to public agencies and their more than 4 million employees and contractors across the country.
The General Services Administration (GSA), which manages services for federal agencies, issued its final five-year award on Monday, said Veronica Juarez, Lyft’s vice president of social enterprise and government.
While individual federal employees have previously been able to use ride-hail services for travel, the new contract allows the companies to formally launch their services within agencies and directly work with officials to promote the service.
Juarez said the award capped a nearly four-year negotiation process. She declined to say how much revenue Lyft expected from the contract, but said the U.S. government spends around $200 million on ground transportation each year.
Lyft also hopes the government contract will open doors to further collaboration on public health and equity projects that require transportation.
The GSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the agency in April announced the award to Uber and Lyft tentatively.
At the time, the agency said in a blog post that it had negotiated discounts with the companies of 2%-4% compared with large commercial customers and that Uber and Lyft had agreed to waive some additional fees.
Uber in a statement said working with the federal government was part of its Uber for Business program that serves large companies and organizations.
“The expansion of our customer base to include government is a natural next step for us, and we’re proud to help federal agencies tackle some of the biggest administrative challenges they face,” Ronnie Gurion, global head of Uber for Business, said in a statement.
Reporting by Tina Bellon in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman
Story Link |
| | Uber Technologies and Lyft Inc. IPOs | Stock Discussion ForumsShare | RecommendKeepReplyMark as Last Read |
|
| To: Kavabata who wrote (191) | 11/27/2020 11:01:04 AM | | From: Glenn Petersen | | | | I have not seen an official date, though I have read that they want to do it before Christmas.
l will let you know if I hear anything. |
| | Uber Technologies and Lyft Inc. IPOs | Stock Discussion ForumsShare | RecommendKeepReplyMark as Last Read |
|
| From: Glenn Petersen | 12/7/2020 4:29:36 PM | | | | | | Uber sells its self-driving unit to Aurora
PUBLISHED MON, DEC 7 20204:05 PM EST
J essica Bursztynsky @JBURSZ
CNBC.com
KEY POINTS
-- Self-driving vehicle start-up Aurora is acquiring Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group, which works on self-driving technology.
-- Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi will join the company’s board, and the ridesharing giant will also invest $400 million into the start-up, which is getting a $10 billion valuation.
-- ATG had been a long-term play for Uber, but the unit brought high costs and safety challenges.
Uber’s self-driving unit, Advanced Technologies Group (ATG), is being acquired by its start-up competitor Aurora Innovation, the companies announced Monday.
The deal, expected to close in the first quarter of 2021, values ATG at approximately $4 billion. The unit was valued at $7.25 billion in Apr. 2019 when Softbank, Denso and Toyota took a stake.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi will join the company’s board, and the ride-sharing giant will invest $400 million into the company.
Overall, Uber and ATG investors and employees are expected to own a 40% stake in Aurora, according to a regulatory filing accompanying the deal; Uber alone will hold a 26% stake. The start-up is being valued at $10 billion in the transaction, according to a person familiar with the terms of the deal.
“With the addition of ATG, Aurora will have an incredibly strong team and technology, a clear path to several markets, and the resources to deliver,” Chris Urmson, co-founder and CEO of Aurora, said in a statement. “Simply put, Aurora will be the company best positioned to deliver the self-driving products necessary to make transportation and logistics safer, more accessible, and less expensive.”
“Few technologies hold as much promise to improve people’s lives with safe, accessible, and environmentally friendly transportation as self-driving vehicles,” said Uber CEO Khosrowshahi in a statement. “For the last five years, our phenomenal team at ATG has been at the forefront of this effort—and in joining forces with Aurora, they are now in pole position to deliver on that promise even faster.”
TechCrunch first reported in November that the two companies were in talks for ATG.
Aurora is backed by Hyundai, Amazon and major venture firms including Greylock and Sequoia.
ATG had been a long-term play for Uber, but the unit brought high costs and safety challenges. Throughout the course of a pandemic-stricken year, Uber has made efforts to stem losses in its ride hailing business, control business costs -- including with major layoffs in the spring -- and to grow its delivery business.
Earlier this year, Uber stirred up controversy by transferring Jump, its electric bike sharing subsidiary, to Lime — another micro-mobility company in which the ride hail giant had invested. Uber acquired Jump outright in 2018 with the stated intention of running and growing that brand independently.
-- CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.
Story Link |
| | Uber Technologies and Lyft Inc. IPOs | Stock Discussion ForumsShare | RecommendKeepReplyMark as Last Read |
|
| From: Glenn Petersen | 2/3/2021 10:09:57 PM | | | | | | Uber agrees to buy alcohol delivery service Drizly for $1.1 billion
PUBLISHED TUE, FEB 2 20219:02 AM EST
UPDATED TUE, FEB 2 202110:04 AM EST
Jessica Bursztynsky @JBURSZ
CNBC,com
KEY POINTS
-- Uber announced Tuesday it is acquiring alcohol-delivery service Drizly for $1.1 billion in stock and cash.
-- Following the completion of the transaction, Drizly’s marketplace will be integrated with the Uber Eats app.
--The deal is expected to close within the first half of 2021.
Uber announced Tuesday it is acquiring alcohol-delivery service Drizly for $1.1 billion in stock and cash.
Following the completion of the transaction, Drizly’s marketplace will be integrated with the Uber Eats app. The company will keep the standalone Drizly app as well, it said.
Founded in 2012, Drizly has become the leading on-demand alcohol delivery service in the U.S. and is available in 1,400 cities. The purchase could help drive people to use Uber’s app more often.
Uber Eats has been a key segment to Uber’s business amid the Covid-19 pandemic, which has dramatically reduced the number of people leaving their homes.
“During this time our delivery business as been growing at extraordinary rates,” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told CNBC on Tuesday. Drizly said it had more than 300% growth in the past year.
The deal is expected to close within the first half of 2021. Uber said that it anticipates that more than 90% of the consideration to be paid to Drizly shareholders will consist of shares of Uber common stock, and the balance will be paid in cash.
Uber stock was up more than 8% in the morning.
Uber has focused its acquisition efforts on its Eats segment during the coronavirus pandemic. After talks failed to acquire food delivery service GrubHub, Uber acquired Postmates last July.
At the same time, Uber has offloaded some of its more cost-eating transportation segments. The company last May transferred its electric bike and scooter business, Jump, to Lime. Uber also sold its self-driving unit, Advanced Technologies Group, to its start-up competitor Aurora Innovation on December 7, valuing ATG at approximately $4 billion at the time. Just a day later, it announced it was selling its flying taxi business, called Uber Elevate.
Story Link |
| | Uber Technologies and Lyft Inc. IPOs | Stock Discussion ForumsShare | RecommendKeepReplyMark as Last Read |
|
| From: FJB | 2/9/2021 9:47:11 AM | | | | | |
The Democrats Just Reintroduced a Labor Law that Would Destroy Uber—And It Could Actually Pass This Time
Brad Polumbo
fee.org
With control of Congress and the White House, Democrats are making labor policy one of their first priorities. Ironically enough, that’s actually bad news for independent contractors and gig economy workers across the country.
The legislation at the core of their agenda is the PRO Act, which Democrats just re-introduced with sponsors including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer. Among many other things, the bill would severely restrict the legal definition of independent contractors in a way that would largely end the gig economy as we know it.
The legislators’ stated intention is to protect workers and bolster their rights under law. Through the reclassification of independent contractors, Democrats hope to force gig economy companies to hire workers as full employees and thus provide them the accompanying salaries and benefits.
“The men and women of labor are the backbone of our economy and the foundation of our strength,” Pelosi said. “With American workers seeing their lives and livelihoods devastated by the ongoing pandemic and economic crisis, the reintroduction of the PRO Act is more important than ever.
“I am proud to join my colleagues in introducing this legislation to put more money in the pockets of hard-working Americans, creating a foundation that provides livable wages to our families,” Schumer added.
The context here is crucial, because this legislation isn’t coming out of nowhere. It’s modeled after a similar but highly controversial California bill, AB 5, that likewise forced the reclassification of independent contractors.
President Biden supported AB 5 at the time, and is on the record supporting the PRO Act, too. And now that Democrats control Congress, it could pass the House and find support from the White House. The only question would be whether it could make it through the closely-divided Senate.
So, it’s worth examining the sweeping impact this legislation would have on the economy.
Millions of Jobs Outlawed with the Stroke of a Pen The PRO Act would outlaw millions of existing jobs with the stroke of the president’s pen.
After all, it would make illegal any independent contractor arrangement where the worker provides services within “the usual course of the business of the employer,” meaning jobs like Uber drivers, Doordash drivers, Instacart grocery deliverers, and more could not exist as we know them. There are roughly 10.6 million independent contractors in the US, accounting for 6.9 percent of all employment. Some of these workers might not be affected by the law and some others may get hired on as full-time as a result. But there’s little doubt that millions more would find themselves unemployed.
For example, Uber alone employs more than 1 million drivers in the US. It’s nearly certain they would all lose their jobs under the PRO Act, because Uber already runs a loss, not a profit, and adding an independent contractor as a full staff member counts roughly $3,625 per driver. Basic math tells you that most of these workers would end up being let go; Uber could even go under. After all, the California legislation nearly forced Uber and Lyft to shut down operations in the Golden State altogether until a last-minute ballot referendum modified the law.
Uber is just one company and one example. But freelance workers such as journalists, photographers, florists, musicians and more all lost work in California under legislation similar to the PRO Act.
“Transcription allowed me to stay at home, be my own boss, and control my workflow and whom I work with,” 72-year-old transcriptionist Dori Lehner told the Independent Women’s Forum. “I only have one direct client now, and I only get work when they have it. My income has dropped down to a quarter of what it was before AB5.”
“A mom-and-pop studio can’t hire me and put me on payroll for a one or two hour lecture that I do once per month,” part-time yoga instructor Jennifer O’Connell told IWF.
“That’s wiped out so much work,” she added, explaining that she’s lost roughly three-fourths of her freelance income.
The authors of AB 5 and the PRO Act likely earnestly believed they were going to help workers like Lehner and O’Connell. But the ugly results of their policy naivete will leave many like them unemployed instead.
The Big Picture: Unintended Consequences Always Plague Big Government Regulation The lesson here is clear. The Democrats’ latest labor proposal is a case study in unintended consequences, which inevitably plague big-government interventions into a vast and diverse economy.
“Economic policies need to be analyzed in terms of the incentives they create, rather than the hopes that inspired them,” famed free-market economist Thomas Sowell once wrote. “The programs that are being labeled for the poor, for the needy, almost always have effects exactly the opposite of those which their well-intentioned sponsors hope them to have.”
“It’s not enough... to endorse legislation that has a nice title and promises to do something good,” economist Robert P. Murphy similarly wrote for FEE. “People need to think through the full consequences of a policy, because often it will lead to a cure worse than the disease.”
Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer clearly haven’t thought this through. If the PRO Act becomes law, it won’t help independent workers—it will eliminate their jobs or strip them of the flexibility that attracted them to the gig economy in the first place.
|
| | Uber Technologies and Lyft Inc. IPOs | Stock Discussion ForumsShare | RecommendKeepReplyMark as Last Read |
|
| From: Glenn Petersen | 2/9/2021 7:59:15 PM | | | | | | Lyft stock rises more than 10% after company reports signs of pandemic recovery
PUBLISHED TUE, FEB 9 20214:12 PM EST
UPDATED TUE, FEB 9 20216:30 PM EST
Jessica Bursztynsky @JBURSZ
CNBC.com
KEY POINTS
-- Ride-hailing company Lyft reported fourth-quarter earnings on Tuesday.
-- The company beat Wall Street’s expectations on revenue and loss per share.
-- Its stock was up more than 9% in after-hours trading.
Ride-hailing company Lyft reported fourth-quarter earnings on Tuesday, surpassing Wall Street’s top- and bottom-line expectations but disappointing when it came to active riders.
The company’s stock was up more than 9% in after-hours trading, thanks to a beat on revenue and signs the business is recovering slightly from the pandemic.
Lyft is also still on track to become EBITDA profitable by the fourth quarter, with a chance that could be achieved by the third quarter, CFO Brian Roberts said in the company’s earnings call.
Here are the key numbers:
Loss per share: 58 cents vs. 72 cents expected in a Refinitiv survey of analysts
Revenue: $570 million vs. $563 million expected by Refinitiv
Active riders: 12.55 million vs. 13.2 million expected in a FactSet survey
Revenue per active rider: $45.40 vs. $42.20 expected per
FactSetThe company’s revenue and ridership jumped from the prior quarter’s results of $499.7 million and 12.51 million riders, suggesting the company is continuing to recover from Covid-19 headwinds. However, it’s still considerably down from the same quarter last year. For the full year, Lyft reported revenue of $2.4 billion, compared with $3.6 billion in fiscal year 2019.
The company said demand near the end of the quarter was also negatively impacted by a surge in coronavirus cases and efforts to slow the spread of the virus.
Roberts said in a statement that Lyft expects “a growth inflection beginning in the second quarter that strengthens in the second half of the year.”
Lyft reported a net loss of $458.2 million for the quarter, up from a net loss of $356 million in Q4 2019. The company said its fourth-quarter loss includes $138.1 million of stock-based compensation and related payroll tax expenses. The company said its net loss margin for this quarter was 80.4% compared with 35% a year ago.
Its adjusted EBITDA loss for the fourth quarter was $150 million, a $19.3 million increase from a year ago. It’s better than the company’s most recent forecast for an adjusted EBITDA loss of less than $185 million. The company said its adjusted EBITDA loss margin for the fourth quarter was 26.3% compared with 12.9% a year ago. EBITDA refers to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.
Lyft also reported $2.3 billion of unrestricted cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments.
The company has failed to bulk up its additional segments in the same way that its main competitor, Uber, has done in the past year. In an effort to replace revenue lost from the coronavirus pandemic, Uber focused on its food and delivery segment, Uber Eats, and shed some of its travel-related segments.
Lyft has yet to grow a food delivery business. The company said last quarter it’s working on expanding delivery and was consulting with restaurants and retailers.
Story Link |
| | Uber Technologies and Lyft Inc. IPOs | Stock Discussion ForumsShare | RecommendKeepReplyMark as Last Read |
|
| From: Glenn Petersen | 2/10/2021 8:35:21 PM | | | | | | Uber losses narrow as delivery growth outpaces fall in ride-sharing
PUBLISHED WED, FEB 10 20214:07 PM EST
UPDATED WED, FEB 10 20215:31 PM EST
Lora Kolodny @LORAKOLODNY
CNBC.com
KEY POINTS
-- Uber’s losses are narrowing as delivery growth continues to outpace a drop in ride-sharing revenue.
-- The company reported mixed Q4 2020 earnings on Wednesday, beating expectations on loss-per-share but falling short on revenue, according to Refinitiv estimates.
-- For all of 2020, Uber’s net losses amounted to $6.77 billion, around a 20% improvement from a staggering $8.51 billion loss in 2019.
Uber’s stock fell slightly after the bell on Wednesday as the company delivered mixed fourth-quarter earnings results.
Here’s how Uber did versus expectations:
Loss: 54 cents per share, versus 56 cents expected, according to a consensus of analysts surveyed by Refinitiv.
Revenue: $3.17 billion versus $3.58 billion expected per Refinitiv.
Overall, Uber lost $968 million on a GAAP basis during the quarter, an improvement from a year ago when losses amounted to $1.1 billion. For all of 2020, Uber’s net losses amounted to $6.77 billion, around a 20% improvement from a staggering $8.51 billion loss in 2019.
Here’s how Uber’s largest business segments performed in the fourth quarter of 2020:
Mobility (gross bookings): $6.79 billion, down 50% from a year ago.
Delivery (gross bookings): $10.05 billion, up 130% from a year ago.While delivery is still way ahead in gross bookings, in terms of revenue Uber’s core ride-hailing business has slightly surpassed delivery again.
CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said on an earnings call Wednesday that Uber sees “many many opportunities” in the mobility segment as different regions recover from the pandemic. Timing for a full-blown recovery of the mobility business is highly dependent on when cities open up again, he added.
In August last year, Uber acquired a marketplace tech company, Autocab, that connects riders with local taxi operators. Khosrowshahi suggested that as travel and commuting begins to increase, taxis will be looking to tap into demand and Uber can benefit.
The CEO worried whether Uber would have enough drivers to meet the demand he expects to encounter in the mobility segment as the pandemic wanes.
Earlier this month, the company announced plans to acquire on-demand alcohol delivery app Drizly, which the company plans to integrate into Uber Eats, its food-delivery service. According to a statement from Uber, the deal was valued at $1.1 billion in stock and cash combined. (The companies did not break down the portion of the deal done in stock versus cash.)
In its update to shareholders Wednesday, the company said that restaurants on Uber Eats exceeded 600,000 in the fourth quarter, with the addition of Union Square Hospitality Group establishments, Chipotle locations in the UK, Wings Etc. and many others.
Deliveries via Uber include more than hot restaurant meals, too. The company is scaling its non-food deliveries after acquiring Cornershop in Mexico for groceries, and Postmates’ courier service which offers deliveries from Apple, among others. In the last quarter of 2020, Uber partnered with retailers as far ranging as H&M in Canada and Seiyu grocery and department stores in Japan.
According to Edison Trends research evaluating transaction data from July 1, 2019 through October 13, 2020, Uber Eats food deliveries represent about 35% of the overall market in the U.S. after the company acquired Postmates. Uber Eats lags DoorDash, but is more popular than the previous food delivery leader Grubhub and emerging players like ChowNow and Slice.
Last quarter, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi talked up the company’s membership and advertising businesses, and said in select U.S. cities Uber was seeing glimmers of recovery from the pandemic.
Uber Pass and Uber Eats Pass had at that time racked up more than 1 million paying members. Now, the company boasts more than 5 million members, according to the company’s fourth quarter note to investors.
Khosrowshahi said Wednesday that as Uber gets a higher percentage of customers who pay for memberships over time, he expects marketing costs to come down. The company is still early in development of Eats Pass, he noted, and will focus on “improving restaurant selection” to win new customers and members over.
This is a developing story... Please check back for updates.
Stolry Link |
| | Uber Technologies and Lyft Inc. IPOs | Stock Discussion ForumsShare | RecommendKeepReplyMark as Last Read |
|
| From: Glenn Petersen | 2/19/2021 7:44:45 AM | | | | | | Uber dealt a major blow in the UK as top court rules its drivers are workers
PUBLISHED FRI, FEB 19 20214:54 AM EST
UPDATED FRI, FEB 19 20216:40 AM EST
Ryan Browne @RYAN_BROWNE_
CNBC.com
KEY POINTS
-- The U.K.’s Supreme Court upheld a ruling that Uber’s drivers should be classified as workers rather than independent contractors.
-- Uber insists its drivers are self-employed and that it acts as more of an “agency” which connects them with passengers through an app.
-- The ruling potentially jeopardizes Uber’s business model in the U.K. and has major implications for the country’s gig economy.
LONDON — Uber lost a crucial legal fight in the U.K. on Friday as the country’s Supreme Court upheld a ruling that its drivers are workers, not independent contractors.
The Supreme Court voted unanimously to dismiss Uber’s appeal against the ruling. The decision could have huge implications for Uber’s U.K. business, as well as the wider gig economy.
Friday’s verdict concludes an almost five-year legal battle between Uber and a group of former drivers who claim they were workers entitled to employment rights like a minimum wage, holiday pay and rest breaks.
In 2016, an employment tribunal ruled in favor of the drivers, led by Yaseen Aslam and James Farrar, who claimed they were workers employed by Uber and therefore entitled to certain labor protections.
Uber insists its drivers are self-employed and that it acts as more of an “agency” which connects them with passengers through an app. Uber wants to keep the legal classification of its drivers as independent contractors unchanged, arguing drivers prefer this “gig” model as it’s more flexible — it also benefits Uber from a cost perspective.
“We respect the Court’s decision which focused on a small number of drivers who used the Uber app in 2016,” Jamie Heywood, Uber’s regional general manager for Northern and Eastern Europe, said in a statement Friday.
“Since then we have made some significant changes to our business, guided by drivers every step of the way. These include giving even more control over how they earn and providing new protections like free insurance in case of sickness or injury.”
Heywood added: “We are committed to doing more and will now consult with every active driver across the UK to understand the changes they want to see.”
The U.K. case echoes Uber’s legal fight with Californian regulators, who last year attempted to reclassify drivers of Uber and other ride-hailing services like Lyft as employees to grant them more employment protections.
But voters supported a ballot measure called Proposition 22, which exempted Uber and other gig economy platforms from reclassifying drivers as employees.
What happens next?
The Supreme Court ruling potentially jeopardizes Uber’s business model in the U.K. Though it only concerns drivers involved in the 2016 case, in theory it is applicable to other drivers using Uber’s app.
The company will now have to go back to the employment tribunal to determine compensation for the group of drivers. But it could face further claims from thousands of other drivers in the country.
It also has major implications for Britain’s gig economy, which is thought to have a workforce of around 5.5 million people. Other companies operating a similar model to Uber’s include Bolt, Ola and Deliveroo.
“This verdict will undoubtedly have far and wide-reaching implications for all gig economy operators and will make it harder for companies engaging people via digital platforms to assert that they are self-employed, despite contractual documentation which may state otherwise,” said Helen Crossland, partner at U.K. law firm Seddons.
Story Link |
| | Uber Technologies and Lyft Inc. IPOs | Stock Discussion ForumsShare | RecommendKeepReplyMark as Last ReadRead Replies (1) |
|
| To: Glenn Petersen who wrote (198) | 3/2/2021 7:59:37 PM | | From: Glenn Petersen | | | | Uber spins out delivery robot startup as Serve Robotics
Kirsten Korosec @kirstenkorosec
TechCrunch
10:39 AM CST•March 2, 2021
Image Credits: Serve Robotics
--------------------------
Postmates X, the robotics division of the on-demand delivery startup that Uber acquired last year for $2.65 billion, has officially spun out as an independent company called Serve Robotics.
TechCrunch reported in January that a deal was being shopped to investors.
Serve Robotics, a name taken from the autonomous sidewalk delivery bot that was developed and piloted by Postmates X, has raised seed funding in a round led by venture capital firm Neo. Other investors included Uber as well as Lee Jacobs and Cyan Banister’s Long Journey Ventures, Western Technology Investment, Scott Banister, Farhad Mohit and Postmates co-founders Bastian Lehmann and Sean Plaice.
Serve Robotics didn’t share specifics of the funding except to confirm that the round, which will be a Series A, has not been completed yet. Funding a spin out can occur in phases, with the first tranche used for the initial launch and the rest of the round closing once IP has been transferred.
The new company will be run by Ali Kashani, who headed up Postmates X. Other co-founders include Dmitry Demeshchuk, the first engineer who joined the Serve team at Postmates and MJ Chun, who previously led product at Anki, has been heading up product strategy at Serve. The company is launching with 60 employees with headquarters in San Francisco and offices in Los Angeles and Vancouver, Canada.
Image Credits: Serve Robotics
----------------------------
“While self-driving cars remove the driver, robotic delivery eliminates the car itself and makes deliveries sustainable and accessible to all,” said Kashani, co-founder and CEO of Serve Robotics. “Over the next two decades, new mobility robots will enter every aspect of our lives–first moving food, then everything else.”
Postmates’ exploration into sidewalk delivery bots began in earnest in 2017 after the company quietly acquired Kashani’s startup Lox Inc. As head of Postmates X, Kashani set out to answer the question: why move two-pound burritos with two-ton cars? Postmates revealed its first Serve autonomous delivery bot in December 2018. A second generation — with an identical design but different lidar sensors and few other upgrades — emerged in summer 2019 ahead of its planned commercial launch in Los Angeles.
The company’s mission to design, develop, and operate delivery robots specialized in navigating sidewalks will continue, albeit with an eye towards expansion. Serve will continue its delivery operations in Los Angeles. It plans to ramp up research and development in the San Francisco Bay area and expand its market reach through new partnerships.
The spin out is consistent with Uber’s aim to narrow the focus of its business on ride-hailing and delivery in a push towards profitability. This strategy began to take shape after Uber’s public market debut in May 2019 and accelerated last year as the COVID-19 pandemic put pressure on the ride-hailing company. Two years ago, Uber had enterprises across the transportation landscape, from ride-hailing and micromobility to logistics, public transit, food delivery and futuristic bets like autonomous vehicles and air taxis. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has dismantled the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach as he pushes the company toward profitability.
In 2020, Uber offloaded shared scooter and bike unit Jump in a complex deal with Lime, sold a stake worth $500 million in its logistics spinoff Uber Freight and rid itself of its autonomous vehicle unit Uber ATG and its air taxi play Uber Elevate. Aurora acquired Uber ATG in a deal that had a similar structure to the Jump-Lime transaction. Aurora didn’t pay cash for Uber ATG. Instead, Uber handed over its equity in ATG and invested $400 million into Aurora, which gave it a 26% stake in the combined company. In a similarly crafted deal, Uber Elevate was sold to Joby Aviation in December.
Story Link |
| | Uber Technologies and Lyft Inc. IPOs | Stock Discussion ForumsShare | RecommendKeepReplyMark as Last Read |
|
| |
