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Online Travel

Despegar Hints at Its Latin American Travel Strategy After Successful IPO

Sean O'Neill photo
Sean O'Neill
despegar IPO

Photo Credit: CEO Damián Scokin (second from the left) rings the bell for the start of trading for online travel agency Despegar on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday. From left to right, pictured are CFO Mike Doyle; CEO Damián Scokin; co-founder Roberto Souviron; Chris Taylor of the NYSE; and Ines Lanusse, head of investor relations. Despegar

Skift Take

With its IPO on Wednesday, Despegar became the world's seventh-largest online travel company by market cap. Its bosses talk a good game. But its major markets may have near-term hiccups ahead.

Despegar means "to take off" in Spanish — and that's exactly what Despegar.com did Wednesday in the stock market. Latin America's largest homegrown online travel agency had an initial public offering, and its shares rallied 22 percent above the issue price in its New York debut. The investor interest was striking given that the company debuted at $26 a share — the high end of its planned IPO range. The company's share price at the close of the day's trading was $31.78. Financial statements say the company has 67,182,110 ordinary shares outstanding as of Wednesday, though a bit more may be in play if underwriters take the option to buy additional shares. Based on the above figures, the company has a market capitalization of $2.135 billion — making it Latin America's first online travel startup "unicorn." That, in turn, makes Despegar the seventh-largest publicly held online travel company in the world, as ranked by market capitalization. Despegar follows in market cap after Expedia Inc., Pricelin

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