This post has been updated to reflect Uber’s pricing of shares
This is expected to be a record year for initial public offerings, with analysts estimating more than $100 billion will be raised. Ride-hailing company Uber is likely to be one of the largest: After pricing its shares today, the company raised $8.1 billion. Its shares begin trading tomorrow, and the market will judge how accurately Uber valued itself. (All this from a company a long way off ever making a profit.)
But $8.1 billion, however impressive, pales in comparison to such heavy-hitters as Alibaba, Visa, and post-bankruptcy General Motors, which all raised more than twice as much. Fourth up among US IPOs is Italian electricity company Enel, which no longer trades in the US—though the $17.4 billion it raised in 1999 would likely be as much as $26.6 billion in today’s dollars.
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