Goldman Sachs abandons Uber and sells its 10 million shares
Goldman Sachs left Uber after its disappointing stock market crash in 2019.
On Wednesday, Chief Financial Officer Stephen Scherr told analysts that Goldman abandoned its position during the fourth quarter.
Goldman Sachs was one of the first investors in Uber. In 2011, the bank contributed $ 5 million to the company’s Series B funding round, according to Bloomberg.
When Uber was listed on the public market in May 2019, Goldman owned around 10 million shares with a return on its initial investment running into the hundreds of millions.
The windfall was something of a consolation prize, as Goldman Sachs lost to Morgan Stanley as the lead banker in the Uber IPO, which had earned a reputation as one of the top public listings in 2019.
But Uber was hugely disappointed when it finally hit the public market in May 2019.
During the company’s first day of trading, the stock fell as much as 8%, wiping out more than $ 655 million of investor wealth.
Uber’s troubles continued throughout the year as investors objected to the company’s large quarterly losses and worried about its ability to turn a profit.
By the end of 2019, Uber had returned 34%.
Goldman’s investment suffered a loss in the third quarter after seeing headwinds in certain “large equity positions, such as Avantor, Tradeweb, WeWork and Uber,” Scherr said.
Like other initial investors, Goldman Sachs was prohibited from selling its shares until six months after the offering.
When the expiration date of Uber’s post-IPO lock came in November, the stock fell to a new low and took the company’s valuation to its lowest level since 2015, when it was a private company.
Goldman Sachs abandons Uber and sells its 10 million shares
