>...Or I guess maybe the IPO bankers leaked it because they want Neumann gone, to make the IPO easier, and want to commit Son to it by leaking. Or because they love messy drama maybe? It’s not their company.
The even funnier part of the segment is when he gets into what some of the banks actually put out as a reasonable IPO valuation.
>...JPMorgan told WeWork executives the company could be worth between $46bn and $63bn in the listing. Goldman pegged the equity at between $61bn and $96bn. Morgan Stanley estimated WeWork’s valuation at between $43bn and $104bn in a presentation in 2018, though a pitch for the IPO set it at a more modest $18bn-$52bn.
It would seem like never. Matt Levine had another interesting take on that as well. [0]
>... Well, I just got through saying that there’s not really any reward for being pessimistic and right about valuation when you are pitching an IPO. Your optimistic competitors will get the mandate, and then spend some time walking the company back
...
On the other hand it is a repeat game and there are occasionally penalties for getting it wrong:
...
it will be rough for Morgan Stanley if winning the biggest IPO prize [Uber] of the unicorn era loses it the biggest IPO prize of all time [Saudi Aramco]
There’s no real downside to saying a big number when pitching a company’s executives on an IPO. It’s not like it locks the bankers into trying to price the IPO at that number, it doesn’t cost anything, the worst that happens is that journalists and pseudonymous message board commenters snark about it.
From "WeKeepGoingWithThisHuh"[0]
>...Or I guess maybe the IPO bankers leaked it because they want Neumann gone, to make the IPO easier, and want to commit Son to it by leaking. Or because they love messy drama maybe? It’s not their company.
The even funnier part of the segment is when he gets into what some of the banks actually put out as a reasonable IPO valuation.
>...JPMorgan told WeWork executives the company could be worth between $46bn and $63bn in the listing. Goldman pegged the equity at between $61bn and $96bn. Morgan Stanley estimated WeWork’s valuation at between $43bn and $104bn in a presentation in 2018, though a pitch for the IPO set it at a more modest $18bn-$52bn.
[0]https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-09-24/don-t-...