Matt Levine, Columnist

Goldman Is Helping Uber Raise Money From Rich People

Uber's private placement is a lot bigger than most IPOs. And no pesky filings! So why do an IPO?

December 2, 2014 at 6:26 PM UTC

Matt Levine is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A former investment banker at Goldman Sachs, he was a mergers and acquisitions lawyer at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; a clerk for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit; and an editor of Dealbreaker.

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Last week Bloomberg News reported that Uber was raising "at least $1 billion" from investors like T. Rowe Price and Fidelity at a $35 to $40 billion valuation. Yesterday Dan Primack at Fortune reported that Uber is also seeking to raise several hundred million dollars from Goldman Sachs private wealth management clients.

In 2011, Goldman tried to do a very similar deal for Facebook1 -- raising money from private wealth clients prior to the initial public offering -- and it became a horrible nightmare. It got wide news media coverage, and people worried that that might constitute "general solicitation" in violation of the securities laws, so Goldman ultimately had to pull the deal from its U.S. clients, leaving them furious and less wealthy than they otherwise would have been, though still quite wealthy.