Airbnb Plans to File Confidentially for IPO in August

Aug. 11, 2020

Airbnb Inc. is close to filing to go public in a move that would underscore a surprising rebound for the home-sharing giant and the IPO market.

The company plans to file IPO paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission later this month, laying the groundwork for a potential listing before the end of the year, according to people familiar with the matter. Morgan Stanley has been tapped to lead the offering, with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. also playing a key role, the people said.

There is no guarantee Airbnb will move forward on the expected timeline, in part because of the notorious volatility of the new-issue market.

The long-awaited move will bring one of the stalwarts of the sharing economy into the public domain, alongside ride-sharing platforms Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc., and sets up the next few months to be an especially busy time for big IPOs. Airbnb was recently valued at $18 billion, down from an earlier valuation of $31 billion.

San Francisco-based Airbnb, the largest home-sharing platform in the U.S., joins a rush of companies tapping public investors after the IPO market emerged from a virtual standstill triggered by the coronavirus pandemic. Music label Warner Music Group Corp. and insurance startup Lemonade Inc. staged successful debuts in June and July, and shares of food-delivery startup DoorDash Inc. and data-analytics firm Palantir Technologies Inc. are both expected to start trading later this summer or in the early fall.

An imminent debut would also mark a turnaround for Airbnb, which was founded in 2008 and allows people to list their homes for rent. For years, the company shied away from the public markets as it grew into one of the most-highly valued startups, with $4.8 billion in revenue in 2019. It spent big, however, prompting it to swing to a loss in the first nine months of 2019 compared with a $200 million profit a year earlier, The Wall Street Journal reported. Its woes deepened late last year after issues emerged involving crime and safety problems on its platform.

As the pandemic spread across the globe, so did the company’s headaches. People stopped traveling, causing bookings to plummet. Airbnb, three years ago valued at more than $30 billion, rushed to secure financing from private-equity firms Silver Lake and Sixth Street Partners at a high interest rate—and with warrants that when exercised would value the company at $18 billion. In May, Airbnb said it would lay off a quarter of its staff.

Chief Executive Brian Chesky said in an interview in April that the company was working to file IPO paperwork with the SEC in March but the coronavirus’ impact on global travel quashed those plans.

Since spring, however, the rebound for Airbnb has been surprisingly swift. Even as people stayed closer to home, they still sought rental-home bookings. On July 8, guests booked more than 1 million nights’ worth of future stays at Airbnb listings around the world, the company said. It was the first time to hit that level since March 3.

If Airbnb makes its debut in 2020, it could do so in one of the most hospitable markets for IPOs in years. U.S.-listed IPOs have raised more than $60 billion so far in 2020, according to Dealogic, on track for the highest level since the tech boom in 2000. On average, these IPOs have risen 23% in their first day of trading, the biggest first-day pop since 2000.

Airbnb Earnings Top Street Estimates as Customers Shift to Longer Stays

Feb. 15, 2022

Airbnb posted better-than-expected fourth-quarter results, as the company continues to reshape its business as it emerges from the Covid-19 pandemic period.

For the quarter, the short-term rentals marketplace posted revenue of $1.53 billion, up 78% from a year ago, and 38% above the 2019 level. That’s slightly ahead of the Street consensus at $1.46 billion. Guidance had called for Airbnb to post revenue of $1.39 billion to $1.44 billion.

Net income was $55 million, or 8 cents a share, ahead of the Street consensus at 3 cents.

Gross bookings were $11.3 billion, up 91% from a year ago, 32% higher than two years ago, and slightly ahead of the Street consensus at $11.1 billion. The number of “nights and experiences” booked was 73.4 million in the quarter, slightly below the Street consensus forecast at 74.8 million.

Airbnb reported adjusted Ebitda, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, of $333 million, ahead of the Street consensus at $278 million.

For the first quarter, Airbnb is projecting revenue between $1.41 billion and $1.48 billion, well ahead of the Street estimate of $1.24 billion. The company also said it expects nights and experiences booked to “significantly exceed” 2019 first-quarter levels, with average daily rates projected to increase 4% in the quarter from a year ago.

“Nearly two years into the pandemic, it’s now clear that we are undergoing the biggest change to travel since the advent of commercial flying,” the company said in a letter to shareholders about the quarterly results. “Remote work has untethered many people from the need to be in an office every day. As a result, people are spreading out to thousands of towns and cities, staying for weeks, months, or even entire seasons at a time. For the first time ever, millions of people can now live anywhere.”

In the quarter, nearly half of nights booked were for stays of a week or longer—and one in five nights were for stays of a month or more, the company said. Over the last year, Airbnb added, the company booked nearly 175,000 stays of three months or longer.

Airbnb also said that gross nights booked in urban destinations accelerated from the the third quarter level and have nearly recovered to fourth quarter 2019 levels. In the U.S., fourth-quarter gross nights booked for urban travel were up over 20% compared to the fourth quarter of 2019. Cross-border travel has accelerated, accounting for 35% of nights booked in the fourth quarter, up from 20% of the total in the first quarter of 2021.