Investments · Ride-hailing
SoftBank-led group agrees to invest up to about $10 billion in Uber
- Investor
- SoftBank Group (with a Dragoneer-led consortium) (Tokyo)
- In
- Uber Technologies, San Francisco, California
- Value
- Up to about $10B for the consortium (about $1.25B primary plus a tender for existing shares at $32.96 a share)
- Status
- Agreed on November 12, 2017; completed in January 2018, with a final stake of about 15%.
- Date
- 2017-11-12
A consortium led by SoftBank Group, together with a group organized by Dragoneer Investment Group, agreed to invest up to about $10 billion in Uber. The deal combined about $1.25 billion in new shares with a tender offer for existing shares at $32.96 each. SoftBank's own share of the total was not stated separately. The deal closed in January 2018, leaving the group with about 15% of Uber.
Why it matters
The deal made the SoftBank-led group one of Uber's largest shareholders, adding to SoftBank's stakes in ride-hailing companies in other parts of the world.
Two-part structure
The deal had two parts. The consortium agreed to buy new preferred shares at the valuation of Uber's previous funding round, about $68.5 billion, but that purchase depended on the second part: a tender offer to buy existing shares from current shareholders. The tender's opening price of $32.96 a share implied a valuation of around $48 billion, about 30% below Uber's last private valuation.
Conditions
SoftBank's offer depended on buying about 14% of Uber's shares through the tender, and Fortune reported that it might need to raise its price if too few holders sold. Many shareholders had hoped for a valuation of at least $50 billion, and the process was expected to take weeks.
Sources
Kakehashi M&A News home
