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Uber Boosts Bond Sale to $2 Billion With Orders Swelling

CEO Khosrowshahi said the company’s planning to go public in the second half of 2019, Uber is now considering doing so earlier.

Uber Boosts Bond Sale to $2 Billion With Orders Swelling
An Uber Technologies Inc. logo sits on a smartphone display in this arranged photograph as London taxis sit parked beyond in London, U.K. (Photographer: Chris J. Ratcliffe/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- Uber Technologies Inc. increased the size of its debut bond offering as orders for the private placement swelled in a market hungry for deals, according to people with knowledge of the sale.

The ride-hailing firm set final terms for the debt including a $1.5 billion portion of eight-year bonds and $500 million of five-year securities, the people said. The longer-dated note offering was originally slated to be $1 billion, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.

Uber is wrapping up the deal after Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. told the firm it could be valued at about $120 billion in an initial public offering next year, people with knowledge of those discussions told Bloomberg News earlier today. While Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi has said that the company’s planning to go public in the second half of 2019, Uber is now considering doing so earlier.

Uber, long seen as one of the most valuable startups in the world, already borrowed in the loan market this year to fuel its global expansion. Representatives for Uber and Morgan Stanley, the lead placement agent, declined to comment for this story.

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Uber had already gathered enough orders for the bond sale last week after a series of calls with investors. This week more came rolling in, perhaps because companies were broadly not selling much new debt. In total, Uber received more than $3 billion of orders, another person familiar said.

The deal was sold privately, a method of financing typically the domain of much smaller firms. By bypassing the broader bond market, the closely-held company is disclosing its financial information to a more limited pool of potential investors. Earlier this year, the company took a similar approach when it borrowed in the loan market and led the financing itself.

Uber’s five-year notes were priced to yield 7.5 percent, while the eight-year notes were priced to yield 8 percent, the people said. The bonds were expected to receive a B3 rating from Moody’s Investors Service and a B- rating from S&P Global Ratings, the people added.

To contact the reporters on this story: Sally Bakewell in New York at sbakewell1@bloomberg.net;Davide Scigliuzzo in New York at dscigliuzzo2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nikolaj Gammeltoft at ngammeltoft@bloomberg.net, Dan Wilchins, Shannon D. Harrington

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