March 29, 2019 - 7:02 AM
SAN FRANCISCO - The Latest on ride-hailing giant Lyft's IPO (all times local):
7 a.m. PST
Lyft is celebrating its IPO in a former car dealership that it's turning into a centre for Lyft drivers.
The venue symbolizes how the ride-hailing company has changed the way we experience transportation.
Co-founder and CEO Logan Green said in the early days of the company, he was told he was crazy to think people would ride in each others' personal vehicles. Now the company has provided more than 1 billion rides.
John Zimmer, Lyft's president and co-founder, says the road ahead comes with massive opportunities and genuine challenges.
Lyft says it will invest $50 million annually or 1 per cent of profits in transportation initiatives in cities. The investments will include free or discounted rides for medical patients and low-income seniors and developing infrastructure for bikes, scooters and transit.
___
3 a.m. PST
Lyft had little trouble getting investors to hop on board its increasingly popular ride-hailing service, as its initial public offering fetched a $72 per-share price that exceeded even its own expectations.
The next big test comes Friday morning when the San Francisco company's stock will begin trading on the Nasdaq exchange under the ticker symbol "LYFT."
It will mark the first time that most people who have used their smartphone to summon a car dispatched by Lyft or its bigger rival, Uber, will have a chance to make a bet on whether the ride-hailing phenomenon will continue to transform transportation and eventually become a major money maker.
The institutional investors that bought into the IPO clearly think so, enabling Lyft to demand a price that was above its initial goal of $62 to $68 per share.
News from © The Associated Press, 2019