(Reuters) – Travis Kalanick, the pugnacious co-founder of Uber, has severed his final ties with the ride-services firm, resigning from the board and promoting all his shares as he turns his focus to a brand new enterprise creating “ghost kitchens” for meals supply companies.
Kalanick, who helped discovered Uber in 2009 and as soon as exerted almost full management, stepped down as chief government in June 2017 below strain from buyers after a string of setbacks.
He’ll depart Uber’s board of administrators by the tip of the 12 months, the corporate mentioned on Tuesday.
A spokeswoman on Tuesday mentioned Kalanick has bought his whole stake of roughly $three billion price of shares in Uber, including that the ultimate regulatory kind might be filed on Thursday after Christmas. Axios earlier reported the sale of ultimate shares.
The spokeswoman declined to reveal what Kalanick would do with the proceeds.
Kalanick’s bellicose type turned Uber into the world’s largest ride-services firm, revolutionized the taxi trade and challenged transportation rules worldwide.
“Only a few entrepreneurs have constructed one thing as profound as Travis Kalanick did with Uber,” Uber Chief Government Dara Khosrowshahi mentioned in an announcement, crediting Kalanick’s “imaginative and prescient and tenacity.”
However his brashness was additionally blamed for a string of scandals and complaints over his management, leading to a shareholder revolt to push him out.
Kalanick mentioned in an announcement that now Uber was a public firm, he needed to concentrate on his present enterprise and philanthropic pursuits. He’s at the moment engaged on a startup that goals to construct massive industrial kitchens and lease house to eating places. The “ghost kitchens” would put together meals for meals supply with out the prices of wait workers and actual property of places that serve diners.
The corporate, often called “CloudKitchens,” to this point has collected $400 million in investor funding by Saudi Arabia’s Public Funding Fund, in keeping with Crunchbase. Kalanick himself invested “a number of hundred million” within the enterprise, his spokeswoman mentioned, declining to supply the complete quantity.
Uber inventory has dropped greater than 30{5048a9ac22a95e6c0a00d427d71a0d7ff263f9d98391fe7073acb5a0aa0a3f48} for the reason that loss-making firm went public in Could as buyers develop skeptical over the ride-hailing firm’s enterprise mannequin and its capability to show a revenue. Uber shares on Tuesday closed largely unchanged at $30.44.
Analysts at Wedbush on Tuesday welcomed the information of Kalanick’s departure, saying his remaining on the board would have been a distraction.
“Many buyers might be glad to see this darkish chapter within the rear view mirror,” Wedbush analysts Ygal Arounian and Daniel Ives mentioned in a observe.
When Kalanick resigned in the summertime of 2017, the corporate had been via a bruising six months throughout which workers accused the previous CEO of fostering a poisonous work tradition that inspired sexual harassment and bullying.
Kalanick in an announcement on the time mentioned Uber was looking for to be a office for everybody with no tolerance for sexual harassment and bullying, and vowed to fireside all workers who engaged in such conduct.
Kalanick gave up voting management of the corporate in October 2017 when Uber’s board of administrators adopted a sequence of measures to shore up company governance, together with a one vote per share coverage.
Reporting by Tina Bellon in New York; further reporting by Anirban Sen and Munsif Vengattil; Modifying by David Clarke and Steve Orlofsky