New Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi wants to make the company profitable before setting an Uber IPO date, but that's going to be even harder now that Uber could be banned in London.
According to a Sept. 22, 2017, TechCrunch report, London's transport regulator rejected Uber's application to renew its license in the city.
In the TC report, the regulator said Uber's "approach and conduct demonstrate a lack of corporate responsibility."
The regulator also said it had issues with how Uber reported serious criminal offences, as well as how it used software that could be used to prevent officials from undertaking regulatory or law enforcement duties.
Uber can still appeal the license decision within 21 days, and it can still operate until any appeal processes have been exhausted.
But if Uber is banned in London, it could push back the Uber IPO date even further...
Almost 8% of Customers Could Be Lost Ahead of the Uber IPO
According to an Oct. 19, 2016, Fortune report, Uber had 40 million monthly active riders across the globe. Uber has 3.5 million users in London, but it doesn't indicate if that's its total riders or monthly active riders.
Unfortunately, because Uber is a private company, we don't know how much money they make in London.
But what we do know is if the company has 3.5 million monthly riders in London, it could be losing 8% of customers if it doesn't win its appeal.
Who Is Dara Khosrowshahi?
Khosrowshahi already had a difficult task making Uber profitable even before the London ban. The company had net losses of $2.88 billion in 2016, and it has already lost $708 million in the first three months of 2017.
Now, Khosrowshahi is a successful businessman and has shown he can lead a company and make it profitable. He was formerly the CEO of Expedia Inc. (Nasdaq: EXPE), and the EXPE stock price surged under his leadership.
In the last 10 years, the EXPE stock price has climbed 413.79%. In comparison, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has climbed 66.23% in the same time span.
But just because he was successful at Expedia does not mean the new CEO will make Uber stock worth buying. The London ban also shows why owning Uber stock would not be a good investment for risk-averse investors.
If Uber was publicly traded and this news broke, the stock price probably would have plummeted.
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However, we found a way to make money from the ride-hailing app without having to own a single share of Uber. No matter what happens with the Uber IPO, there is still a way to profit.
Best of all, you don't have to wait for Uber to go public to make money.
Here's the safest way to start profiting from Uber today...
You Don't Have to Wait for the Uber IPO to Make a Profit
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As Uber grows, it will need more office space.
And because Uber's headquarters are in San Francisco, it will need to pay a lot of money to rent properties in the city and expand its campus.
According to Investopedia, San Francisco is the second most expensive city in the United States, with the average home costing $820,000 inside the city. That also means business space comes at a premium.
That creates a backdoor strategy of making money from the ride-hailing app without owning a single share of Uber stock. This strategy involves a lot less risk, because you'll avoid the volatile price swings that accompany public offerings.
Through extensive research, we found a real estate investment trust (REIT) that leases space to Uber.
In 2013, Uber signed a lease with Hudson Pacific Properties Inc. (NYSE: HPP) for an 88,134-square-foot space in San Francisco. The ride-hailing app grew so fast that it leased another 130,434 square feet in 2014 at the San Francisco location, according to BizJournals.com.
If Uber wants to create a campus like Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) or Facebook Inc. (Nasdaq: FB) after a successful IPO, it could lease one of Hudson's other San Francisco properties, Rincon Center, which has over 580,000 square feet.
Uber is also locked into that lease until 2024, which means seven more years of revenue from just one business. Uber accounts for 3.2% of Hudson Pacific's revenue, according to FactSet.
Hudson also has another huge tech client, Netflix Inc. (Nasdaq: NFLX), which just signed a lease for a 91,000-square-foot space in January.
And that solid revenue stream has analysts bullish on HPP stock...
Of the analysts who cover HPP, 73% recommend it as a "Buy" or "Overweight" in September. On Aug. 25, brokerage firm D.A. Davidson & Co. placed a "Buy" rating on HPP with a one-year price target of $40.00.
From today's opening price of $32.60 per share, that's a potential profit of 22.69%. On top of that, HPP also pays its shareholders a dividend of $0.25, which is a yield of 3.07%.
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