"In our view, valuation is the toughest task with LYFT," Michael Ward, an analyst at Seaport Global Securities, wrote to clients this week."While we believe the ridesharing market will continue to grow and expect LYFT to be a prime competitor, in our view, current valuations reflect an overly optimistic view of consumer behavior in the US."
To compare Lyft's current valuation with the technology giants of yore, Markets Insider has compiled the valuations, annual revenue, and price-to-sales ratios of some of the more popular tech IPOs over the last two decades. A portion of the data in the slides below is from a recent report distributed by Daniel Morgan, a portfolio manager with Synovus Trust Company.
His conclusion from analyzing the price-to-sales ratios of companies like Netscape, Yahoo, and eBay is that the valuations of some of today's unicorn valuations pale in comparison. Morgan told clients that the valuations of recent unicorns"appear extremely low compared to the 'Go-Go' Days in Technology investing from 1995-1999, before the Tech Bubble Burst, when companies like Yahoo and Netscape went public at 'Monster Size' multiples of 238x and 171x Revenues!!!"Of the companies analyzed, Morgan disclosed Synovus Trust Company owns shares in Facebook, Amazon, Alibaba, and Twitter. Morgan personally owns shares of Facebook and Amazon.