Uber co-founder sells 90 per cent of his shares
Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick has sold over the past few weeks shares in the lift-sharing platform worth more than $US2.5 billion ($3.6 billion), or more than 90 per cent of his shares, the Wall Street Journal reports.
According to the daily financial newspaper, if Kalanick should continue to sell off at that rate, he would be completely divested of his Uber shares in a matter of days.
The former Uber CEO started getting rid of his shares at the beginning of November, about six months after the company was listed on the stock exchange, a time when he and others of the original investors were barred from selling their shares on the stock market.
For now Kalanick’s reasons for selling off his participation in the lift-sharing service he co-founded, and which he was forced to leave in 2017 under pressure from investors due to a number of scandals within Uber, have not been explained.
Kalanick resigned after being sued for fraud as well as hit with accusations about the sexual harassment and discrimination going on in Uber.
The company was first traded on the stock market last May, with one of the largest public share offers in the history of the tech industry.
Since then its shares have lost 30 per cent of their value, with the company incapable of meeting the expectations of investors.
Uber’s problems to a large extent reflect the market’s concern about the company’s inability to pump out profits and the battles it has with a number of regulators.
In the last quarter, the firm suffered losses to the tune of $US1.2 billion, though it surpassed the experts’ forecasts.
Kalanick, meanwhile, is developing a new business dubbed CloudKitchens, which offers industrial kitchen spaces for restaurants serving home-delivery apps.
EFE
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Source: Thanks smh.com