Despegar, the Argentina-based travel and accommodation booking marketplace backed by tourism services provider Expedia, raised $332m in an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday.
The company issued almost 12.8 million shares priced at the top of the $23 to $26 range it set last week. The underwriters have a 30-day option to buy more than 1.9 million additional shares, which would boost the IPO’s size to approximately $382m.
Founded in 1999, Despegar runs an online platform that sells flights, holiday accommodation package holidays on behalf of third parties.
The platform, known as Decolar in Brazil, was responsible for $3.3bn in bookings in 2016, and Despegar made a $17.8m net loss that year from $411m in revenue.
Expedia, which made a $270m strategic investment in the company in early 2015, had its 16.4% stake diluted to 14.3% through the offering. The stake owned by Despegar’s largest shareholder, hedge fund sponsor Tiger Global Management, was cut from 57.3% to 45%.
Growth equity firm General Atlantic’s 5.4% share of the company was diluted to 4.6%. Despegar’s other investors, which include venture capital firms Sequoia Capital, Insight Venture Partners and Accel, each owned stakes sized at less than 5% pre-IPO.
Morgan Stanley and Citigroup Global Markets. are joint lead book-running managers for the offering while Itau BBA USA Securities and UBS Securities are joint bookrunners, and Cowen and Company and KeyBanc Capital Markets co-managers.