Instacart, the San Francisco online grocery delivery giant, has set a Sept. 19 date for its initial public offering that values the company at $9.3 billion. As of Sept. 11, the company expects trading on its new Nasdaq-based “CART” shares on Sept. 20. Company executives and financial backers hope to raise $616 million from the sale of 22 million shares in its upcoming IPO.
That would put CART’s initial sales price in the $26-to-$28 trading range, company officials estimated.
The $9.3 billion valuation isn’t set in stone and could change in the next week or so leading up to the IPO. It’s also worth noting that Instacart had a $39 billion valuation as recently as 2021, more than four times the updated valuation.
While the IPO may wind up being the biggest of all new stock issues in 2023, it doesn’t measure up historically.
CART:
So how does Instacart measure up against the biggest global IPOs of the 21st century?
Nothing’s official yet, but it’s likely not in the same league as the big IPO boys in recent history.
Take Saudi Aramco, which raised $25.6 billion in its December 2019 IPO. That makes it the biggest IPO haul in history, surpassing China-based Alibaba, which raised $21.8 billion in its September, 2014 IPO.
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Instacart likely won’t stack up against the biggest U.S.-based IPOs.
That title goes to Visa, which went public in March, 2008, raising $17.4 billion. That’s an impressive figure given the relatively high opening trading price of $44 per share. In comparison, Instacart will likely be priced out at $26-to-$28 per share in its IPO next week.
On the upside, Instacart should be one of the largest IPOs of 2023, but it won’t best Cambridge, U.K.-based Arm Holdings Ltd. The semiconductor firm is expected to roll out its own IPO this week and is looking to raise approximately $5 billion with the stock trading at $47-to-$51 per share with an estimated valuation of around $52 billion.
Valuations are usually a dicey proposition with new IPOs and often change on the fly.
In 2019, for instance, WeWork was listed on the New York Stock Exchange at a $47 billion valuation. Today, its market cap is about $141 million and the stock is in serious danger of being delisted by the NYSE.
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