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 value 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 value 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.
--With assistance from Jack Witzig.
To contact the reporter on this story: Tom Metcalf in London at tmetcalf7@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Pierre Paulden at ppaulden@bloomberg.net, Steven Crabill
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