爱彼迎拟2020年大举上市

民宿短租网站爱彼迎上周四称将在2020年申请首发上市，将成为亮相华尔街的一系列重磅科技公司中的又一成员。

爱彼迎未具体说明IPO的时间安排。此前曾有投资者预计它将像优步、Lyft、Zoom和Pinterest等许多同类科技企业一样在今年上市。

无论如何，爱彼迎都会带来一次重磅IPO。在2017年9月的最新一轮私募中，该公司估值已达到310亿美元。

在爱彼迎披露IPO计划前，其他科技独角兽公司在IPO之后表现不一。独角兽是业界对价值10亿美元及以上公司的称呼。首发上市以来，Zoom和Pinterest的季报一直表现强劲，从而推动股价飙升。两家公司当前的股价都仍高于首发价。

但优步和Lyft上市后股价持续下滑，原因是季度亏损严重以及投资者意识到它们很难盈利，甚至是长期而言。

对于申请上市的亏损企业，华尔街已经出现了一些不耐烦迹象。最生动的例子就是共享办公空间提供商WeWork。外界原本预计该公司将在下周首发上市，但由于其470亿美元的极高私募估值、巨额亏损以及CEO对董事会的严格控制连续受到投资者质疑，本次IPO已经推迟。

IPO研究及投资公司Renaissance Capital负责人凯思琳·史密斯说：“私募市场愿意给予的估值和公开市场支持的价值已经脱钩。私募估值无法在股市上得到延续。”

但史密斯指出，2019年对IPO来说仍是个好年份，表现较好的新股的比重超过了那些亏损最严重的新上市公司。

由联合创始人兼CEO布莱恩·切斯基领导的爱彼迎预计不会成为亏损额最高的公司之一。今年初，该公司称在不计利息、税款和其他成本情况下已经实现盈利，但未披露美国通用会计准则下的净利润。

史密斯称：“如果爱彼迎大量亏损，我就会认为它将遇上麻烦。但我觉得情况并非如此。”

已经为IPO做好准备的爱彼迎一直在进行扩张。

今年6月，爱彼迎推出了高端房源服务Luxe，精选2000多套豪华房源。其中包括一座法国城堡、一座牙买加海滨别墅和一幢南非海滨豪宅。此项业务有望与万豪的豪宅租赁业务Homes & Villas相抗衡。

此外，爱彼迎最近收购了酒店预定App HotelTonight，后者2017年3月的最后一次估值为4.63亿美元。这款App可以帮用户在最后时刻找到打折的酒店，从而改善爱彼迎提供的精品酒店名单。预计它将帮助爱彼迎吸引更多的用户。

爱彼迎还在加强自己的管理团队，聘请了维珍美国创始CEO费雷德·里德负责自己的交通运输业务。它还没有详细介绍自己在这方面的计划，仅表示该业务将包括“可以改善交通运输的思路与合作”。

去年底爱彼迎任命大卫·斯蒂芬森为首席财务官。他曾任亚马逊全球消费业务副总裁兼财务主管，现在负责爱彼迎的全球网站销售。（财富中文网）

译者：Charlie

审校：夏林

Airbnb said on Thursday that it would file for an initial public offering in 2020, marking what will be another in a string of huge Wall Street debuts for tech companies.

Airbnb, which rents homes to vacationers, did not give a specific timeline for its planned IPO. Some investors had expected the company to go public this year, like many of its tech peers did, including Uber, Lyft, Zoom, and Pinterest.

Whatever the case, Airbnb's IPO promises to be a blockbuster. In its latest round of private financing in September 2017, the company was valued at $31 billion.

The news of Airbnb's IPO plans follow mixed IPOs by fellow tech unicorns, the industry's term for companies that are valued at $1 billion or higher. Zoom and Pinterest's have reported strong quarters since their IPOs, sending their stocks soaring. Both companies are still trading above their debut pricing.

But shares of Uber and Lyft have steadily fallen since their public premieres, fueled by huge quarterly losses and the realization by investors that profits will be difficult to achieve, even in the long term.

Wall Street is showing some signs of impatience with money-losing companies filing for IPOs. The most vivid example is co-working office giant WeWork, which was initially expected to hold an IPO next week, but then delayed it after investors raised a litany of concerns over the company’s sky-high private valuation of $47 billion, huge losses, and the CEO's tight control over the board.

“There has been a disconnect between what the private market is willing to value and what the public market supports,” said Kathleen Smith, principal at Renaissance Capital, an IPO research and investment firm. “Private valuations have been unsustainable in the public market.”

Regardless, 2019 has been a good year for IPOs, with the stronger performers outweighing the biggest losers, Smith added.

Airbnb, led by co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky, is not expected to be among some of the biggest money losers. Early this year, the company said it was profitable excluding interest, taxes, and other costs but did not reveal a net profit using generally accepted accounting standards. During the second quarter, the company said it had “substantially more than $1 billion” in revenue from more than 7 million listings on its service in more than 100,000 cities worldwide.

“If Airbnb were a large money losing company, I would say it’s going to have trouble,” Smith said. “But I don’t think that’s the case.”

And the company, readying for the IPO, has been pushing to expand.

In June, the Airbnb debuted a new luxury service called Luxe with more than 2,000 high-end rentals, including a French chateau, a Jamaican oceanfront villa, and a South African beach house. The service is expected to compete with Marriot’s luxury home-rental service, Homes & Villas.

Additionally, Airbnb recently acquired hotel room app HotelTonight, which was last valued at $463 million in March 2017. The app, which helps users find last-minute hotel rooms at discounted rates, bolstered Airbnb’s boutique hotel listings and was expected to help the company attract more customers.

Airbnb has also been beefing up its executive team with hires like Fred Reid, the founding CEO of Virgin America who now oversees Airbnb's transportation efforts. The company has yet to detail exactly what it plans for transportation, only saying it will include “ideas and partnerships that can make transportation better.”

Late last year, Airbnb brought on chief financial officer Dave Stephenson, the former vice president and finance chief of Amazon’s worldwide consumer organization responsible for the company’s global website sales.