Cooley, Covington, Davis Polk Get Big Bonus From Uber IPO
Cooley, Covington & Burling, Davis Polk & Wardwell are collecting $5.5 million in legal fees and expenses for Uber IPO work.
May 10, 2019 at 10:22 AM
4 minute read
The original version of this story was published on The Recorder
Uber's stock is now for purchase on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “UBER,” as the company aims make the largest IPO by a U.S.-based company since Facebook.
The San Francisco-based ride-hailing giant turned to Cooley and Covington & Burling for legal services related to the long-awaited IPO, with Davis Polk & Wardwell serving as underwriter counsel.
According to Uber's updated IPO prospectus, filed April 26, the three law firms are collecting $5.5 million in legal fees and expenses for the IPO work. The filing also discloses that attorneys at Cooley have a beneficial interest in an aggregate of less than 0.03 percent of Uber's common stock.
With a total of 207 million shares registered, valued at $45 per share, 0.03 percent of Uber's common stock would be valued at $2.79 million.
Uber is selling 180 million shares of its common stock in the IPO, which at $45 a share would allow the company to raise $8.1 billion.
The IPO price, which is near the bottom of its expected price range, gives Uber a market value of almost $74 billion. On a fully diluted basis, including restricted stock units and other shares, Uber has an implied market valuation of $82.4 billion.
Besides Uber's massive IPO, Cooley also grabbed the lead last month on PagerDuty and Zoom's public offerings, each of which generated $1.5 million in legal fees.
Palo Alto-based Cooley, which began asking clients for pre-IPO stock as a matter of course in mid-1999, said it saw a significant uptick in its capital markets practice in the recent year. In a February interview with The Recorder, Cooley's CEO Joseph Conroy said his firm advised on more than 175 public offerings in 2018 and represented banks in about half of those offerings.
Fueled by the increased demand for capital markets work, Cooley reported gross revenue of $1.23 billion last year, an increase of 14.4% from $1.07 billion in 2017. The firm's net income also skyrocketed by nearly 24% to $535.6 million.
Uber's offering is by far the biggest tech IPO so far this year and the largest one on a U.S. exchange since China-based Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.'s $25 billion global record holder in 2014. The American Lawyer reported in 2014, Alibaba paid $15.8 million in legal fees to law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and other attorneys who advised the e-commerce giant on its IPO.
Uber's rival, Lyft, reported $1.4 million in legal fees and expenses for its IPO in late March. Lyft's stock plummeted about 35 percent since its IPO.
Both ride-hailing companies are unprofitable. In its SEC filings, Uber reported 2018 revenue of $11.27 billion, net income of $997 million and adjusted EBITDA losses of $1.85 billion.
Just a few days before Uber's IPO, thousands of Uber and Lyft drivers stayed off the road, striking for better pay and benefits. The Recorder affiliate Corporate Counsel reported Thursday that Uber has set aside $146 million to $170 million to settle misclassification claims filed by 60,000 U.S. drivers.
|Read More
This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.
To view this content, please continue to their sites.
Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
NOT FOR REPRINT
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
You Might Like
View AllThese Law Firm Leaders Are Optimistic About 2025, Citing Deal Pipeline, International Business
6 minute readO'Melveny Secures Global Clearances for Korean Air-Asiana Merger
GE Agrees to $362.5M Deal to End Shareholder Claims Over Power, Insurance Risks
2 minute readTrending Stories
Who Got The Work
Michael G. Bongiorno, Andrew Scott Dulberg and Elizabeth E. Driscoll from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr have stepped in to represent Symbotic Inc., an A.I.-enabled technology platform that focuses on increasing supply chain efficiency, and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The case, filed Oct. 2 in Massachusetts District Court by the Brown Law Firm on behalf of Stephen Austen, accuses certain officers and directors of misleading investors in regard to Symbotic's potential for margin growth by failing to disclose that the company was not equipped to timely deploy its systems or manage expenses through project delays. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton, is 1:24-cv-12522, Austen v. Cohen et al.
Who Got The Work
Edmund Polubinski and Marie Killmond of Davis Polk & Wardwell have entered appearances for data platform software development company MongoDB and other defendants in a pending shareholder derivative lawsuit. The action, filed Oct. 7 in New York Southern District Court by the Brown Law Firm, accuses the company's directors and/or officers of falsely expressing confidence in the company’s restructuring of its sales incentive plan and downplaying the severity of decreases in its upfront commitments. The case is 1:24-cv-07594, Roy v. Ittycheria et al.
Who Got The Work
Amy O. Bruchs and Kurt F. Ellison of Michael Best & Friedrich have entered appearances for Epic Systems Corp. in a pending employment discrimination lawsuit. The suit was filed Sept. 7 in Wisconsin Western District Court by Levine Eisberner LLC and Siri & Glimstad on behalf of a project manager who claims that he was wrongfully terminated after applying for a religious exemption to the defendant's COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The case, assigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge Anita Marie Boor, is 3:24-cv-00630, Secker, Nathan v. Epic Systems Corporation.
Who Got The Work
David X. Sullivan, Thomas J. Finn and Gregory A. Hall from McCarter & English have entered appearances for Sunrun Installation Services in a pending civil rights lawsuit. The complaint was filed Sept. 4 in Connecticut District Court by attorney Robert M. Berke on behalf of former employee George Edward Steins, who was arrested and charged with employing an unregistered home improvement salesperson. The complaint alleges that had Sunrun informed the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection that the plaintiff's employment had ended in 2017 and that he no longer held Sunrun's home improvement contractor license, he would not have been hit with charges, which were dismissed in May 2024. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Jeffrey A. Meyer, is 3:24-cv-01423, Steins v. Sunrun, Inc. et al.
Who Got The Work
Greenberg Traurig shareholder Joshua L. Raskin has entered an appearance for boohoo.com UK Ltd. in a pending patent infringement lawsuit. The suit, filed Sept. 3 in Texas Eastern District Court by Rozier Hardt McDonough on behalf of Alto Dynamics, asserts five patents related to an online shopping platform. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap, is 2:24-cv-00719, Alto Dynamics, LLC v. boohoo.com UK Limited.
Featured Firms
Law Offices of Gary Martin Hays & Associates, P.C.
(470) 294-1674
Law Offices of Mark E. Salomone
(857) 444-6468
Smith & Hassler
(713) 739-1250