United States based home rental firm Airbnb has finalized plans for listing itself art a stick exchange in 2020 which would make it the most high profile companies to decide to move to go public next year.

The company issued a short statement which was posted on its website on Thursday but did not provide any details about the manner in which it wants to list its shares for the public to consume. Analysts however believe that the path that the company would most likely take would be that of a direct-listing route. This is a method of going public involves a company not creating any new shares which essentially helps companies to save on huge money which otherwise would go for the purpose of underwriting fees.

A number of high profile companies had got themselves listed this year in the United States which includes names like ride hailing companies Uber and Lyft Inc. However despite the huge fanfare surrounding the launch of the initial public offering of the companies, the share prices of the companies have fared poorly since then because of skepticism among investors about the method that the businesses can adopt to achieve profitability.

The initial public offering was also delayed by the WeWork owner The We Company as it has postponed it launch which was set to be done this month because of a not so positive response from the investors.

According to analysts however, the debut of Airbnb is likely to receive a warmer reception from investors because in their view, the financial performance of the company and its balance sheet is a bit more stable in comparison to the recent internet unicorns that have got themselves listed.

“I think it’ll be a whole different reception for Airbnb, assuming that they can show they’re a profitable business without having to lose money on marketing,” said Kathleen Smith, principal at Renaissance Capital, a provider of institutional research and IPO ETFs.

No information or details have been given by Airbnb on whether it had managed to make a profit in the second quarter of 2019. However Airbnb had said earlier that it had managed to achieve positive numbers with respect to its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization for 2017 and 2018. For the second quarter of the current year, Airbnb managed to generate revenues of more than $1 billion, the company said.

(Adapted from IndiaTimes.com)

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