Uber looks to raise $750M in debt

Uber offered $750 million dollars in debt for general corporate purposes, which could include potential acquisitions. This comes after reports on Tuesday that it is looking to acquire Grubhub. Yahoo Finance's Alexis Christoforous and Brian Sozzi discuss.

Video Transcript

BRIAN SOZZI: Let's take a look at one of the trending tickers on YahooFinance.com, that is none other than Uber. This morning, the ride sharing company offered $750 million in debt to help fund general corporate purposes, which could include potential acquisitions. Alexis, this sure seems like the company is looking to raise debt to ultimately make a bid for Grubhub. It should be noted Grubhub came out yesterday and played down their interest in teaming up with Uber. A lot of reports swirling that a combination of these two companies might be nearing and might be nearing very soon.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Yeah, I think we saw this one coming. Right, Brian? We've been talking about it a lot, the consolidation in this very crowded space of meal delivery. You'd be combining the second and third largest meal delivery companies in the country if Uber and Grubhub were to get together. It looks like Uber cannot agree on a price that it would pay to acquire Grubhub. There was talk that investors would have received 2.15 Uber shares for every share of Grubhub, valuing the company at 6 and quarter billion dollars.

Now at the same time, their attempt to combine here coming under a lot of fire from usual suspects. Lawmakers, antitrust experts saying that Uber is a predatory company, that combining the second and third largest meal delivery companies would not be good news for customers. So I'm not sure if they're going to ultimately prevail here. First, they have to come up with a price they both agree on, but then they have to get past antitrust regulators. And for a company like Uber that has had so many missteps on the regulatory front, it really could be an uphill battle, Brian.

BRIAN SOZZI: Well, the bull here is I think in many respects in the court of Grubhub founder Matt Belloni. I've talked to Matt a bunch of times, and he has always struck me as a very passionate leader, borderline obsessed with what he does with his work, so what ultimately happens with Grubhub I think is in very much in his hands.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: All right, we're going to leave it there, and certainly continue to watch Uber and Grubhub as I'm sure we have not heard the last of this story.