Pinterest joins US IPO wave with fast revenue growth

Bloomberg

Image search site Pinterest Inc. revealed steady revenue gains with narrowing losses as well as a big bet on overseas expansion, as it joined a surge of technology-related companies planning to go public in the US.
Pinterest in its filing for an initial public offering reported strong user growth internationally and even a profit in the fourth quarter. It plans to list its shares as soon as April, a person familiar with the matter said.
The San Francisco-based company filed with an initial offering size of $100 million, a placeholder amount used to calculate fees that’s likely to change. While the proposed terms of the share sale won’t be disclosed until a later filing, Pinterest could raise about $1.5 billion in an IPO valuing it at $12 billion or more, people familiar with the matter have said.
The share sale will be led by banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Allen & Co., according to the filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Pinterest applied to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker PINS.
Pinterest will have a dual-class structure, with its Class B shares carrying the voting rights of 20 ordinary shares. The company’s co-founders and executives will retain significant voting power after the offering, according to the filing.
The company raised $150 million in a private funding round in 2017 for a total valuation of about $12.3 billion. Pinterest confidentially sha-red its IPO plans with the SEC earlier this year.

‘SIGNIFICANT GROWTH’
Pinterest has experienced “significant growth” in users and monetisation over the last several years, it said in the filing. It also said it has grown quickly in international markets by localising content.
The company said it lost $63 million on revenue of $756 million in 2018, compared with a loss of $130 million on $473 million in 2017. Those numbers were improvements over 2016, when it lost $182 million on revenue of $299 million.
In the fourth quarter, the company generated a profit of $47 million on revenue of $273 million. It also generated a profit — $3.4 million — during the same quarter of 2017.
Pinterest said it reaches more than 250 million monthly active users, two thirds of whom are female. That includes 43 percent of internet users in the US, it said, citing an independent study by Comscore.
“This includes eight out of 10 moms, who are often the primary decision-makers when it comes to buying products and services for their household, as well as more than half of all US millennials,” it said in the filing. “We expect to continue to grow our user base over time, especially in international markets.”