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By Joshua Franklin and Heather Somerville
April 25 (Reuters) - Ride-hailing company Uber TechnologiesInc will unveil terms for its initial public offeringon Friday, telling investors it will seek to be valued atbetween $80 billion and $90 billion, according to peoplefamiliar with the matter.
The valuation sought is less than the $120 billion valuationthat investment bankers told Uber last year it could fetch, andcloser to the $76 billion valuation it attained in its lastprivate fundraising round last year.
Uber's moderation of valuation expectations reflects thepoor stock performance of its smaller rival Lyft Incfollowing its IPO last month. Lyft shares ended trading onThursday down 22 percent from their IPO price amid investorskepticism over its path to profitability.
Uber will unveil on Friday an IPO price range of between $44and $50 per share, based on which it would raise between $8billion and $9 billion, the sources said. This would rank it asthe largest IPO since that of Chinese e-commerce giant AlibabaGroup Holding Ltd in 2014.
In addition, some Uber insiders will also sell their ownshares in the IPO, the sources said. Reuters reported earlierthis month that all the Uber shares sold in the IPO could beworth around $10 billion.
Uber also plans to unveil on Friday its last sale of stockas a private company, the sources said. The identity of theinvestor involved in the private placement could not immediatelybe learned.
The investor roadshow will kick off in earnest on Monday,setting the stage for Uber to debut on the New York StockExchange in early May.
For the roadshow, Uber's top executives will travel theUnites States and make a stop in London to drum up investorinterest in the IPO, sources said.
The sources asked not to be identified because the matter isconfidential. Uber declined to comment. The price range wasreported earlier by Bloomberg News.
Two other IPOs this month, those of online scrapbook companyPinterest Inc and video conferencing company Zoom VideoCommunications Inc, have performed much more stronglythan Lyft. Uber, however, has chosen to still value itselfconservatively.
"People are more cautious than they were 4 weeks ago," saidDuncan Davidson, general partner at Bullpen Capital, anearly-stage venture capital investment firm.
Uber operates in more than 70 countries. In addition to ridehailing, its business includes bike and scooter rentals, freighthauling, food delivery, and an expensive self-driving cardivision.
The ride-hailing startup has disclosed it has 91 millionusers, but growth is slowing and it may never make a profit.Uber in 2018 had $11.3 billion in revenue, up around 42 percentover 2017, but below the 106 percent growth the prior year.
During the IPO roadshow, Uber’s chief executive, DaraKhosrowshahi, will be tasked with convincing investors that hehas successfully changed the company's culture and businesspractices after a series of embarrassing scandals over the lasttwo years.
Those have included sexual harassment allegations, a massivedata breach that was concealed from regulators, use of illicitsoftware to evade authorities and allegations of briberyoverseas.
Uber is reserving some shares in the IPO for drivers whohave completed 2,500 trips among other criteria.
AUTONOMOUS DRIVING
Last week, Uber's autonomous vehicle unit raised $1 billionprivately from a consortium of investors, including top Ubershareholder SoftBank Group Corp, giving the company amuch-needed funding boost for its self-driving ambitions.
Last year, Uber settled a legal dispute over trade secretswith Alphabet Inc's Waymo self-driving vehicle unit.Waymo, in its lawsuit, had said one of its former engineers whobecame chief of Uber's self-driving car project took with himthousands of confidential documents.
One advantage Uber will likely seek to play up to investorsis that it is the largest player in many of the markets in whichit operates. Analysts consider building scale crucial for Uber'sbusiness model to become profitable.
Lyft, which was valued at $24.3 billion in its IPO, hasfocused only in the U.S. and Canadian markets.
"Investors are now asking for more clarity on howride-sharing companies will monetize data they are collectingand if this is a scalable business," said Jordan Stuart, aclient portfolio manager for Federated Kaufmann funds who oftenpurchases stock in IPOs.
(Reporting by Joshua Franklin in New York and HeatherSomerville in San Francisco; additional reporting by JenniferAblan in New York; editing by Bill Rigby, Meredith Mazzilli andChris Reese)
