The home rental firm Airbnb made its stock market debut on Thursday and saw the value of its shares almost doubling and reaching over $100 billion. This valuation was reached at the biggest U.S IPO (initial public offering) of the year 2020. This capped the bumper year where most of the investors had preferred and attacked the technological stocks and shares in the market.
The opening price of the share was $146 at Nashdaq, which was far above the original price of $68 that had managed to raise a total of $3.5 billion. The stocks hit an all-time high of $165 and closed on the final value of $144.71 which is also a very good price for the stocks. Overall, the Airbnb stocks were soaring heights during the U.S IPO.
The Airbnb has shown an astonishing growth and recovery, given the fact that it was one of the most heavily impacted businesses because of the pandemic. The entire travel industry had virtually disappeared from the scene.
But as lockdowns began to ease and people started adapting to the new normal, the business started reviving. Given the nature of this pandemic, more travellers preferred booking houses as compared to hotels in order to ensure their safety which helped Airbnb to come back on track and put profits in its belly in the third quarter of this year.
People also wanted a break from the major cities and wished to go to more secluded places- a personalized experience, which is something that only Airbnb could offer.
The Airbnb Chief Executive Brain Chesky also remarked in a statement, that this particular summer a lot of people wouldn’t have expected to see an Airbnb IPO. He believes that this has been one of the most unbelieve journeys as they were planning on going public, but seeing such a surge is in itself shocking. Before the stock had started trading, Chesky told all his employees that the stock pricing is one thing that is completely out of their control.
Airbnb started as a small website only for the purpose of booking rooms for business conferences and today has converted itself into one of the markets biggest competitors. The listings of Airbnb were one of the most anticipated ones for the U.S IPOs of the year 2020 and it has already managed to set new records.