Booming Sales of Lamborghini Urus SUV Drive Automaker’s $11B Valuation
The valuation could yield an IPO and allow Lambo to fight the likes of Ferrari on the trading floor, say Bloomberg analysts.
Largely thanks to the introduction of the Urus SUV, Lamborghini's overall valuation has hit $11 billion, making it a candidate for an initial public offering, according to Bloomberg. If Lambo does go public, it would be able to square off on the trading floor (as well as the dealerships) against Ferrari, a company that hit the New York Stock Exchange in October 2015 under the ticker RACE.
In 2018, Lambo sales grew 51 percent to 5,750 cars sold. Over 1,700 of those were Urus SUVs (Uruses? Urii?).
In addition to the hot-selling off-roader, Bloomberg says the latest Aventador and a hybrid supercar coming out next year will help the Volkswagen-owned exotic carmaker raise profit margins above 30 percent. The company has previously confirmed both the Aventador and Huracan's successors to be plug-in hybrids.
"VW’s partial IPO of Traton trucks sets the stage for further corporate restructuring, which should include a Lamborghini IPO, in our view," said Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Michael Dean and Gillian Davis.
For those out of the loop, the Volkswagen Group consists of a handful of brands including Porsche, Bugatti, Bentley, Seat, Skoda, Traton trucks, and, of course, Audi. Lamborghini and bikemaker Ducati are officially owned by Audi.
Despite Dean and Davis' recommendations, the auto conglomerate doesn't seem all that interested in a Lamborghini IPO. "There’s currently no decision to make any changes to the structure of the Audi group," the company told the financial media firm in an email. In the next few years, Audi reportedly wants to "improve on costs, price position, and margins" instead.
According to the report, exotic car IPO performance is mixed. While $RACE has since doubled in price, Aston Martin's stock has dipped 70 percent since its debut under the ticker $AML on the London Stock Exchange last October.