Airbnb (ABNB) now expects to offer shares for its initial public offering at a range between $56 and $60 per share, underscoring demand for new U.S. stocks, according to an S-1/A filing Monday. The U.S. home rental firm had on Tuesday set a price range for its IPO to sell shares at $44 and $50 apiece.
At the upper end of the new range, Airbnb would sell $3.1 billion in stock and have a fully diluted valuation, which includes securities such as options and restricted stock units, of $41.8 billion.
This is well above the $18 billion Airbnb was worth in an April private fundraising round in the early weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States, and above the $31 billion in its last pre-Covid-19 fundraising in 2017.
Airbnb’s stock market debut, slated for Dec. 10 on Nasdaq, will be one of the largest and most anticipated U.S. IPOs of 2020, which has already been a bumper year for flotations.
Scott Rostan, the CEO of Training the Street, said Airbnb is benefiting from optimism about vaccine news. The company has also come through the pandemic better than hotels and even its home-sharing rivals. Rostan said Airbnb’s revenue was down 32% compared to 2019 through the third quarter, while Booking.com and Expedia — which owns VRBO — both reported declines of more than 50%.
Airbnb also got leaner and refocused on home sharing during the pandemic. In May, the company cut 1,900 jobs and ended projects not directly related to its core business, like movie production.
Airbnb has more than 7 million listings on its platform, run by 4 million hosts worldwide.
