At some point, someone who loves the comfort Uber offers is very likely to get curious to know who owns Uber. Uber is owned majorly by a group of institutional investors like Morgan Stanley, The Vanguard Group, and FMR. Individual investors, especially employees of the companies — like the CEO and the COO — own a significant part of the company. The current CEO of Uber company is Dara Khosrowshahi. There are more than 20 different institutional shareholders of Uber, and their combined ownership is about 71.80% of Uber. Uber’s insiders own about 30.21% of the company.
Contents
Who is Dara Khosrowshahi
Dara grew up in New York and studied engineering at Brown University. Before he became CEO of Uber, Dara was the CEO of Expedia, which is an American online travel shopping company. Dara’s knowledge isn’t limited to the engineering field only. Instead, he has knowledge both in the engineering field and finance. He demonstrated his deep financial knowledge when he served as Chief Financial Officer of IAC Travel. He actively advocates for refugees in crisis in various parts of the world. Now as the CEO of Uber, Dara manages the company’s operations excellently in over 70 countries.
History of Uber
The idea to establish Uber came to Garrett Camp in 2009 when he and Travis Kalanick spent a considerable amount to hire a private driver on New Year’s Eve. Both men also experienced difficulty finding a taxi in Paris on a snowy night. These two unfavorable factors triggered both men to create the Uber transport business. Garrett Camp, together with Conrad Whelan and Oscar Salazar, built the Uber app prototype. A beta launch of the Uber app occurred in May 2010, and Ryan Graves served as the CEO of the company until December 2010, when Travis Kalanick succeeded him. Uber started rendering services first in San Francisco in 2011. In 2011. Travis Kalanick publicized the company well as UberCab, but San Francisco taxicab operators complained, so the company’s name got changed to Uber as we know it today. Kalanick stepped down as the CEO of Uber in June 2017. In 2019, Uber began trading its shares to the public. Travis Kalanick, who owned 4% of Uber at that time, sold all his shares in December 2019 and left the board on December 31, 2019. Kalanick’s shares were worth $2.5 billion when he sold them.
Brief History of the Founders
A brief history of both founders of Uber is below:
Travis Kalanick
Travis Kalanick was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. He developed an interest in computers right from a tender age. The interest triggered him to learn how to write codes when he was in middle school, and he eventually studied computer engineering at the University of California. In 1998, Kalanick dropped out of school to assist in launching Scour, a start-up company offering search engine features and file-sharing services. Scour was successful for some time, but later had to file for bankruptcy in 2000 due to copyright infringement issues. Kalanick bounced back in 2001 when he founded Red Swoosh, a company that focuses on file-sharing technology. Red Swoosh became a successful company, though Kalanick later sold it to Akamai Technologies for approximately $19 million. Since that time, Kalanick has been investing in promising start-ups.
Garrett Camp
Garrett Camp was born and raised in Canada. He studied electrical engineering at the University of Calgary. In 2002, Garrett co-founded StumbleUpon, which is a discovery and advertisement engine. Garret was still the CEO of StumbleUpon when he co-founded Uber in 2009.
Uber’s IPO
Uber’s shares weren’t available to the public until ten years after the company got incorporated. Uber started trading its share on May 10, 2019, on the New York Stock Exchange. The Initial Public Offering (IPO) in 2019 was $42 per share. Uber’s IPO was the highest on the NYSE for the year 2019.
Major Shareholders of Uber
The top shareholders of Uber include:
Morgan Stanley Investment Management
Morgan Stanley Investment Management holds 8.22% of Uber shares, worth about $5.6 billion. Morgan Stanley is a multinational investment management and financial services firm. The company’s headquarters are in Midtown Manhattan, New York City.
The Vanguard Group, Inc.
The Vanguard Group holds 5.54% of Uber shares, worth about $3.79 billion. The company is a registered investment advisor in Malvern, Pennsylvania, having approximately $7 trillion in global assets under its management as of January 13, 2021. The Vanguard Group, Inc., is currently the largest provider of mutual funds worldwide.
Fidelity Management & Research Company (FMR Co.)
Fidelity Management & Research Company holds 5.40% of Uber shares, worth about $3.69 billion. The company is a multinational financial services company in Boston, Massachusetts. It has approximately $4.5 trillion worth of assets under its management as of December 2021.
Blackrock, Inc.
Blackrock, Inc., holds 4.12% of Uber shares, worth about $2.82 billion. BlackRock, Inc is a multinational investment company in New York City. It is the largest asset manager in the world, with about $10 trillion as of January 2022.
Garrett Camp
Garrett Camp, the co-founder of Uber, holds 3.37% of Uber shares worth $2.31 billion. Garrett is one of the top individual shareholders of the company, though his share is far less than those of institutional investors.
Public Investment Fund
The Public Investment Fund (PIF) is the sovereign wealth of Saudi Arabia. The PIF holds 3.65% of Uber shares worth $2.50 billion. The PIF was established in 1971 to invest funds on behalf of the Saudi Arabia government. And so far, it has become one of the largest sovereign wealth funds worldwide, with about $620 billion worth of assets.
Conclusion
institutional investors and insider investors own Uber. The number of Uber’s institutional investors will definitely still increase, as Uber is quite profitable. Thus, we expect Uber’s ownership to become even more diversified than it is currently in a couple of years to come. And even while the company’s ownership gets more diversified, the company’s CEO, executives, and the largest shareholders will remain the most influential decision-makers for Uber.