Uber received three new investment offers that its Board of Directors is currently considering, people close to the San Francisco, California-based ride-hailing giant said on Sunday. One of those proposals comes from SoftBank, a Japanese tech giant that repeatedly stated its interest in Uber, whereas another one was signed by the Dragoneer Investment Group which is looking to purchase some of the firm’s existing shares from an unnamed investor looking to cash out. The final offer was made by an investment firm headed by one Shervin Pishevar, one of the earliest investors in Uber, the sources said. It’s understood that all three offers are seeking to purchase a stake in Uber from the company’s existing investors, i.e. that the tech giant isn’t expected to issue any new shares as part of any of these deals which are still in a precursory phase and may not materialize in the end.
Both SoftBank and Dragoneer are said to be offering to purchase some of Uber’s existing shares at a significant discount compared to its latest $68.5 billion valuation, though a minor percentage of the former’s stake would be acquired at a regular price in an effort to not compromise Uber’s estimates, according to recent reports. Furthermore, Dragoneer is not only seeking to increase its commitment to Uber but is also interested in ousting Benchmark Capital in the process of doing so. Benchmark is one of the ride-haling firm’s earliest and largest investors that holds a seat on its board and was one of the few parties who pressured Travis Kalanick into resigning his CEO position in late June. More recently, Benchmark filed a lawsuit against Mr. Kalanick, claiming that Uber’s former chief executive defrauded investors and violated his fiduciary duties, consequently looking to completely oust him from the company by legally canceling his seat on the board.
Mr. Pishevar’s new offer to buy out the majority of Benchmark’s stake and force it to remove itself from Uber’s board came in direct response to the lawsuit filed against Mr. Kalanick, though the offer currently doesn’t seem likely to go through, with Benchmark recently stating it has high hopes for Uber and indicating it has no intentions of selling its stake in the company. At the same time, Uber is still searching for a new CEO that should help stabilize the firm which recently went through a variety of scandals and started worrying many investors.