Lyft IPO Enthusiasm Drives Up Founder Stakes to $1.4 Billion

Lyft IPO Enthusiasm Drives Up Co-Founders' Stake to $1.2 Billion

(Bloomberg) -- Demand for Lyft Inc. stock has lifted the of the combined stake of its co-founders to $1.4 billion.

Shares of the second-largest ride-hailing company jumped about 20 percent in initial trading to $85.48 as of noon in New York. The firm priced its shares at $72 on Thursday, from an earlier range of $62 to $68. The increase boosted the of Logan Green’s and John Zimmer’s holdings to about $800 million and $600 million respectively, according to calculations by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The duo established the firm in 2012.

Early backers of the company hold larger positions. Hiroshi "Mickey" Mikitani’s e-commerce group Rakuten Inc. owns $2.7 billion of the class A shares. General Motors Co. has a stake worth around $1.6 billion.

While Green and Zimmer may not own the biggest economic stakes in the business, they will exert outsized power through the class B shares they own, each of which has the voting rights of 20 ordinary shares. It means the pair will hold combined voting power of about 49 percent in the company after the offering, according to the prospectus filing.

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

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