CEO says company close to going public

Mark your calendars. Uber is getting ready to go public.

But don’t hold your breath just yet. Because any IPO from the ridesharing leader won’t take place for another year.

That’s the timetable that Uber Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi has set for the company to finally take the step into the realm of the publicly traded businesses, answerable, at least in theory, to its shareholders. Khos- rowshahi made the statements about Uber’s future public plans during an interview with CNBC at the Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.

Khosrowshahi said Uber was on track for an IPO in the second half of 2019, and that the company is in a “good position” with regards to its finances, its balance sheet and its company profile. A former CEO at online travel booking site Expedia, Khosrowshahi took on the top job at Uber in 2017 after the resignation of Travis Kalanick and a slate of embarrassing events ranging from inappropriate workplace behavior among Uber executives and incidents of sexual assault by Uber drivers against their passengers.

The negative publicity hasn’t completely stopped under Khosrowshahi’s watch. In March, a pedestrian crossing a street at night in Tempe, Arizona was struck and killed by an Uber car that was operating in self- drivingmode, and with a human driver assistant in the vehicle. Contact Rex Crum at 408-278-3415.