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Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

nytimes.com

221–230 of 273 posts

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#221
post #31

Market cap now exceeds top 5 US hotel chains combined. How much can it grow from here?

Based on Airbnb's other product of "experiences", I could see them growing into the broader vacation industry. I remember a talk by Brian Chesky where he lamented the (pre-COVID) style of travel where tourists just herd into queues at mainstream tourist attractions. Airbnb experiences are supposed to subvert this and create an industry of tourism that is more serendipitous and less standardized.

It's just a marketing talk for airbnb getting into activities booking business.

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#222
post #31

Market cap now exceeds top 5 US hotel chains combined. How much can it grow from here?

Airbnb’s business model is much more capital efficient than regular hotels. It can grow and respond to market conditions much faster than a hotel, has much lower customer acquisition/marketing costs, and operates in a wider market segment than hotels since extended stay is a much more common use case (yes, you can stay in a hotel for an extended stay, and there are extended stay hotels, but anecdotally I’ve never heard of a consumer paying for that out of pocket unless they are like homeless or temporarily homeless. It’s usually a corporation or insurance paying for it AFAIK).

I still don’t think it necessarily justifies the current market cap.

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#223
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really think that the CFO should be accountable for pricing in market hype? I would much rather under-estimate and over-perform then over-estimate and fall short. The narrative between those two scenarios is drastically different. Related. Look at Snowflake, it's trading well beyond any logic. Most retail doesn't realize that ~10% float is trading. Watch for Monday as lock-ups expire, the price action will be…

> The narrative between those two scenarios is drastically different. Who cares about the narrative unless you need to raise capital again soon? The money you get in an IPO actually goes into the business, while the trading price of the stock has no impact on the business.

The banks care because they do this all the time. One way they convince people to buy into the shitty IPOs is to also get them access to the good ones. Then the bank can make the fees from taking shitty companies public without upsetting the investors who buy those shitty IPOs.

An individual company is not part of an iterative game but the underwriters and institutional investors are, and it creates misaligned incentives.

It’s the reason for the hype around direct listings. So far no one has raised money that way but it’s only a matter of time. The difference is between floating publicly and floating publicly with a raise is basically nothing.

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#224
post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on Airbnb's other product of "experiences", I could see them growing into the broader vacation industry. I remember a talk by Brian Chesky where he lamented the (pre-COVID) style of travel where tourists just herd into queues at mainstream tourist attractions. Airbnb experiences are supposed to subvert this and create an industry of tourism that is more serendipitous and less standardized.

It's already so easy to do non-standard tourist activities on a vacation that I'm skeptical there is a big opportunity here. All it takes to avoid the standard tourist traps is having interests that influence your travel, talking to locals, or firing up something like Groupon to find something to do in a new area. I've always figured that so many people hit up classic tourist spots because that's what they actually w…

You and I seem to travel in the same way, but I know many people - even of roughly my generation, late 20s/early 30s, who literally don't know the right tools or communities to plan a trip like that. Its guidebooks, maybe some YouTube videos, and mostly things like Pinterest boards that get used to plan a trip. No trips to the local destination's subreddit, certainly no use of Google Translate to read some local media/magazines, etc.

For a lot of people, "tourist trap" doesn't register as a thing - those are just the things you _do_ when you go to whatever place you're going to.

If Airbnb becomes the safe, convenient, well-marketed way to discover reputable but not stereotypical local experiences in a marketplace that takes your credit card, they could do well IMO.

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was the second largest "money left on the table" from an IPO. Jay Ritter's document shows how much AirBNB could have picked up if they had priced their IPO appropriately. https://site.warrington.ufl.edu/ritter/files/Monnew.pdf

Can someone please explain the winners and losers of this $3.9 Billion discrepancy?

Winners: The investors who bought Airbnb shares at $68 whose shares are now worth $140.

Losers: Existing Airbnb shareholders who have shares in a company that could have raised $7B in cash but instead raised $3.5B. In theory, the mispricing "cost" Airbnb around 4% of its market cap, so existing common shares are worth 4% less than they should be.

But there's a caveat[1].

Companies like Airbnb (no stable profit) are almost entirely valued on sentiment and expectation. Assuming perfect information and rational actors, in an alternate universe, a direct listing would have resulted in around a $146[2] share price, on top of which the company can raise a secondary listing for $3.5B without affecting the share price. They'd have the same assets and liabilities as they have today, except pocketing the difference (by limiting dilution) instead of handing it to investors.

However, there's no certainty that the valuation would be $146 today had they gone this route. Humans, especially hype-powered retail investors who like to jump on flashy IPOs, are very susceptible to things like IPO bumps when making their buy or sell decisions. An entire field[3] of investing with significant buying power essentially relies on predicting sentiment.

If I'm a common shareholder, sure I'm sad that my shares are worth maybe 4% less than they "should" and that the financial world pocketed the difference, but I'm probably pretty happy my shares are worth what they are and aren't too interested in, for example, rehashing the deal or picking a offering strategy that could have swayed investor sentiment in a way that made my shares worth much more than 4% less.

[1] - The impact of "more perfectly" priced IPOs on market sentiment and thus public valuation is the most significant factor, but a secondary one is the practical aspect that the IPO process consists of a lot of risk, both on the part of the underwriting investment bank who gives the company the money raised in the IPO and the small number of powerful investors get access to (often) preferential pricing from the investment bank in exchange for an advanced commitment to buy the shares and hold for some agreed upon time. This illiquid market is dominated by relatively few actors. An IPOing company who doesn't "play ball" may find itself unable to find someone willing to underwrite their funding round or buy into it at all. [2] - This theoretical loss per share is computable two ways. The easy way is that they "left $3.5B on the table" which divided into Airbnb's current market cap of $84B is ~4%. The other way is the counterfactual way. Airbnb currently has 600M shares outstanding, having issued 50M shares in the IPO in exchange for $3.5B. So if not for the issuance, Airbnb is worth $80.5B with 550M shares outstanding, or $146 per share. [3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_analysis

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#226

I recall that Facebook's first day closed at or near the offer price: Opened at $38 and closed at $38.23. That's a masterful IPO pricing accomplishment, meaning, FB left $0.23 per share on the table. Moreover, the stock traded below the open for 5 quarters before starting it's impressive rise. Even with that pause, buying at the open and holding till now would have yielded nearly 27% annualized return. It's just my o…

Their CFO did not set the price, the best bankers in the world did. Whoever they were, they were smart.

There's an inherent degree of volatility in markets, there's no way to set a price.

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#227
post #120

2x IPO strike price in first day of trading after $613M recouped stock options after the layoffs. Stock consolidation and 180 day lock up period creates a big risk for when employees sell. Lots of them probably have tens of thousands of shares, exercised them very cheaply, and will want to offload them. I'm not going to touch this stock with a 10-foot pole. I do wish I could short this stock but options aren't availa…

Everyone says this about the lock up and it makes sense intuitively, but it doesn't really match the data. I saw a presentation by a major investment bank that showed that in most cases there is not a significant drop following the lock up expiration -- I'm sure there are examples either way, but this was a compelling basket.

If the effect of early employees and investors selling after the lockup is significant, it wouldn't manifest itself as a drop after the lock up, it's a known date and it would be anticipated ahead of time by other investors and traders with the stock price reflecting this.

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#229

I recall that Facebook's first day closed at or near the offer price: Opened at $38 and closed at $38.23. That's a masterful IPO pricing accomplishment, meaning, FB left $0.23 per share on the table. Moreover, the stock traded below the open for 5 quarters before starting it's impressive rise. Even with that pause, buying at the open and holding till now would have yielded nearly 27% annualized return. It's just my o…

Someone posted a terrific explanation for why companies are not “leaving money the table”. In short, if a fool pays $140 for 1 share of Airbnb, does that magically make the entire company worth 2X more? If I sell 1 share of my startup for $10, is my company worth $1B?

Re: Airbnb’s Stunning IPO

#230
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't possible so soon after the IPO as very few shares are currently available for shorting

Interactive brokers currently has over 280k shares available for short selling, at a fee rate of 0.25%.

Not anymore.
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