(Bloomberg) — StubHub had $350 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization for the year ending in March, as the ticket seller prepares for a planned US initial public offering, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The operator of ticketing resale platforms StubHub and Viagogo saw $1.4 billion in revenue in the period, as well as $505 million of unlevered free cash flow, the person said, asking not to be identified as the information isn’t public.
StubHub is in early discussions about its listing with prospective investors and is working with Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp. on the planned listing, a different person familiar with the matter said. The IPO could come as soon as July, the person said.
Deliberations are ongoing, no final decisions have been made and details of the offering may change, the people said. Representatives for StubHub, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Bank of America declined to comment.
A StubHub listing would come as the ticketing business is being roiled by a US Department of Justice-led lawsuit against Live Nation Entertainment Inc. seeking to force the US concert promoter to sell its giant ticketing arm, Ticketmaster. Such a development may create an independent rival to platforms like StubHub and Viagogo.
The company had explored going public via a direct listing in 2022 that could value it at more than $13 billion, and filed confidentially with the US Securities and Exchange Commission at the time, Bloomberg News reported.
Shares of Vivid Seats Inc., a competitor to StubHub which went public via a merger with a blank-check company in 2021, have declined about 60% since its listing.
Vivid Seats had $142 million in adjusted Ebitda and $712.9 million in revenue in 2023, according to a statement. It trades at a multiple of about 12.2 times earnings, Bloomberg calculations show.
StubHub and Viagogo’s ticket reselling operations span more than 90 countries, according to its website. Chief Executive Officer Eric Baker, one of StubHub’s co-founders, left before the business was sold in 2007 to eBay Inc. for $310 million. Baker later founded Viagogo in Europe, and in 2019, it acquired StubHub for $4.05 billion.
–With assistance from Katie Roof.
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Published: 10 Jun 2024, 11:20 PM IST