Lyft for sale


06/30/2016

Lyft, specializing in call drivers, hired investment bank Qatalyst Partners. The latter is known to help technology companies find buyers for their business, said sources familiar with the situation. According to them, Qatalyst Partners’ founder and CEO Frank Quattrone have already consulted on purchase of shares in Lyft with investors, including major automotive manufacturers. However, it is not known whether it is sale of services or just attracting finances to the startup.



Lyft is Uber Technologies’ largest competitor in the United States.

Both companies are spending millions of dollars on development of the affiliate network of the car. Lyft has already attracted investors from around $ 2 billion. This is 6 times less than Uber has made. Price for of Lyft’s business, according to the latest assessment of investors, is $ 5.5 billion.

Among Lyft’s potential buyers would be General Motors, which has already paid $ 500 million for 10% stake in the service at the beginning of the year. Then the automaker explained that such applications are important for the car market. Both companies have agreed to cooperate in production of unmanned vehicles and rental cars from Lyft drivers. 

Hiring Qatalyst Partners, which is considered one of the most active players in the market of mergers and acquisitions in Silicon Valley, may mean that Lyft’s owners are open to offer the company for sale.

This year Qatalyst Partners took 4th place in the list of investment banks specializing in transactions. According to the financial and analytical services Dealogic, current transactions portfolio of Qatalyst Partners totals $ 33.7 billion, including sale of LinkedIn to Microsoft Corp for $ 26 billion, which was announced two weeks ago.

This year will bring a significant number of mergers and acquisitions of technology companies as they are finding it increasingly difficult to attract funding from venture capitalists.

Such a large number of companies that are negotiating transactions, as today, there was the past four years, he said this month Marc Andreessen (his firm Andreessen Horowitz is an investor Lyft). According to Dealogic, this year mergers and acquisitions in the technology sector are expected to total $ 260 billion. This would be a record in this segment since 2000. 

source: wsj.com