Airbnb Pushes IPO Date

Airbnb’s initial public offering has reportedly become the first company to be officially impacted by the U.S. post-election’s uncertainty just one day before it was set to be filed.

Bloomberg News cited unnamed sources as saying the world’s largest home-sharing platform has postponed — at least for a few days — filing what’s been pegged as perhaps 2020’s largest and most-anticipated U.S. IPO. Although the San Francisco-based company has offered no confirmation or denial of the delay, people familiar with the situation told Bloomberg the company decided to delay filing for an IPO “to keep it from being overshadowed by the fallout from the U.S. election.”

Analysts expect the IPO to raise about $3 billion, valuing Airbnb at $30 billion. While the company could still go forward next week, sources told Bloomberg that the delay could extend beyond next week if concerns about the post-election rift haven’t subsided.

Travel Sector Implications 

While the last-minute delay is certainly a disappointment for investors, it also raises questions as to whether the move carries any repercussions for the global travel industry. The sector is struggling through what’s arguably its most difficult year ever and has been starved for good news.

As for the company itself, it’s no secret that Airbnb has suffered from COVID-19’s impacts. In May, CEO Brian Chesky announced plans to cut about 1,900 staff, raise $2 billion through the debt sales and undertake a complete reassessment of operations. That came following a company projection at the time that 2020 revenues would be less than half what they were in 2019.

Chesky also posed two key long-term questions that remain unanswered — and continue to hang as a cloud over Airbnb as well as the entire travel-and-tourism industry.

“We face two hard truths,” he said. “We don’t know exactly when travel will return. [And] when travel does return, it will look different.”

And as much as sources are citing politics as the reason behind the Airbnb IPO’s temporary delay, it’s impossible to ignore COVID-19’s current resurgence, which has seen U.S. new-case counts top 100,000 each day so far in November.  This has been tempered by news of a vaccine from Pfizer, and many sources say the upshot could be an Airbnb-led rush to file IPOs before the end of the year.

“Airbnb is going to be the capstone of 2020,” said Matt Kennedy, a senior strategist at IPO research firm Renaissance Capital. “We do expect DoorDash also to file, probably Instacart as well. You never really know unless the company leaks it that they’re going to file, but we do have a list of potential companies that would, and with the positive vaccine (news), everything’s on the table.”

Still, analysts have pointed out that with over 7 million accommodation listings in 220 countries, Airbnb’s scope is almost twice as large as the major hotel operators, who control a combined 4.3 million guest rooms.

Although Airbnb doesn’t own any properties itself, investors and rivals have been waiting for the IPO to get a full look at the company’s financials, and also to gauge them against the 12-year-old upstart’s valuations.

The IPO will also shed light on other travel trends and regional recovery variances. For example, consumers have gravitated towards holiday home rentals rather than urban apartment stays since the pandemic struck, CNBC reported.

The network also said things are picking up for Airbnb. For instance, CNBC noted that Airbnb saw customers book more than 1 million nights of stays in a single day in July — the first time daily volume has been that high since the COVID-19 crisis began in March.