Airbnb hikes IPO price range for possible $42 billion valuation

By: Noah M.

Airbnb’s initial public offering this week could make the home-sharing giant worth nearly $42 billion now that it’s hiked the target price range for the listing.

The vacation-rental giant plans to list its shares for between $56 and $60 apiece, it said in a securities filing Monday, up from the range of $44 to $50 that was announced last week.

At the high end of the new range, Airbnb would raise about $3.1 billion from the hotly anticipated IPO with a fully diluted valuation of $41.8 billion — more than double the $18 billion price tag it received in a private fundraising round in April as the coronavirus pandemic hammered its business, Reuters reported.

The company announced the new price targets three days ahead of its Thursday debut on the Nasdaq stock exchange, where it will trade under the ticker symbol “ABNB.”

Airbnb is forging ahead with its IPO at the end of a whirlwind year. The San Francisco-based firm laid off about 25 percent of its staff in May as the coronavirus crisis battered the travel industry. Its business recovered over the summer as demand for home rentals increased with travelers avoiding hotels during the pandemic.

Airbnb’s offering will come amid a record-setting surge in listing activity. More than $140 billion has been raised so far this year from IPOs on US exchanges, beating the previous record set in 1999 during the dot-com boom, according to The Wall Street Journal, which first reported on Airbnb’s target price hike.

Food-delivery giant DoorDash also boosted the target price range for its Wednesday market debut late last week. It plans to raise up to $3.1 billion by selling 33 million shares for between $90 and $95 each, up from the previous range of $75 to $85 per share.