Airbnb Aims To Raise Roughly $3 Billion In IPO: Report

Home rental company Airbnb is aiming to raise around $3 billion in its upcoming initial public offering, people familiar with the matter said on Friday, taking advantage of the unexpectedly sharp recovery in its business after the Covid-19 pandemic roiled the travel industry. Airbnb will be one of the largest and most anticipated U.S. stock market listings of 2020 which has already been a blockbuster year for IPOs, featuring the likes of record label Warner Music Group, data analytics firm Palantir Technologies and data warehouse company Snowflake. Airbnb said in August it had filed confidentially for an IPO with U.S. regulators. This would be substantially higher than the $18 billion Airbnb was valued at in April when it raised $2 billion in debt from investors. Shares of U.S. online travel agency Booking Holdings Inc , which some Airbnb investors use as a conservative public market proxy for its own stock, have rebounded more than 35% in the past six months. Reuters reported last month that billionaire investor William Ackman had approached Airbnb about going public through a reverse merger with his blank-check company but that Airbnb was prioritizing going public through a traditional IPO..