Uber co-founder sells over 90% of his stake

The co-founder of the ride-hailing giant Travis Kalanick has sold more than $2.5 billion of stock in the past seven weeks, more than 90% of his stake, Report informs, citing The Wall Street Journal.

The pace if continued could see him sold out entirely in the coming days.

The sales started in early November, shortly after Mr. Kalanick and other early investors were first allowed to sell on the open market, and have continued every day the stock market has been open through Dec. 18.

It couldn’t be learned precisely why Mr. Kalanick is selling so much of the company he started, but he has long harbored frustrations with the current management team as well as the investors who pushed him out, according to people familiar with the matter.

The stock is down more than 30% since the initial offering, when Uber sold shares for $45 each, at around $30 a share.

The sagging stock partly reflects investors’ broader worries about Uber’s ability to turn a profit. The company lost $1.2 billion last quarter alone.

According to the article, Uber has tried to turn things around. It beat analysts’ expectations for revenue and earnings in the third quarter and said it expects to have positive earnings before other expenses including interest and depreciation by 2021—earlier than many analysts projected.

Mr Kalanick, who was ousted as Uber’s chief in 2017 after a litany of scandals but still serves on the company’s board, began to cash in his shares immediately after November’s expiration of so-called “lock-up” restrictions on company insiders selling stock, after Uber’s initial public offering in May.

Working out of Los Angeles, he is developing a new business called CloudKitchens, which builds commissary kitchens to be used by emerging food-delivery companies.

That business has been funded in part by Mr. Kalanick, as well as by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which invested $400 million in the startup early this year, people familiar with the investment have said.