The
companies and the NYSE declined to comment.
NYSE has become the exchange of choice over NASDAQ for big
technology companies in the past few years after NASDAQ famously
bumbled the Facebook IPO with massive technology errors. The
exchanges compete fiercely for listing fees, and much like
investment banks, often begin courting large companies long
before they are ready to list.
NASDAQ did score the IPO of ride hailing firm Lyft Inc, which
could reach or exceed a $23 billion valuation when it prices its
shares March 28. Lyft will be the first internet player to kick
off a string of hotly anticipated public debuts that will
energize the IPO market after a quiet start to the year.
In a sign that investors crave newly issued stock, shares of
Levi Strauss & Co surged 31 percent in their debut on Thursday,
giving the jeans maker a market value of $8.7 billion.
Bloomberg first reported the Uber news on Thursday while the
Wall Street Journal first reported the Pinterest news.
Uber, a global logistics and transportation company most
recently valued at $76 billion in the private market, is seeking
a valuation as high as $120 billion, although some analysts have
pegged its value closer to $100 billion based on selected
financial figures it has disclosed.
Pinterest, which owns the image search website known for food
and fashion photos, was valued at $12 billion in its last
fundraising round in 2017. The San Francisco-based company has
grown rapidly since its founding in 2008, boasting 250 million
monthly active users last September.
Pinterest monetizes its website through advertisements, which it
places among the "pins" that users put on the site.
Reuters previously reported Pinterest could raise around $1.5
billion in the IPO, which is likely to come in the first six
months of 2019. The Wall Street Journal said on Thursday that
the company could reveal its IPO filing as early as Friday and
list its shares by mid-April.
(Reporting by Liana B. Baker in New York and Joshua Franklin in
New York; additional reporting by Carl O'Donnell; editing by
Leslie Adler)
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