Airbnb wants to give loyal landlords shares in the company
Airbnb could not exist if there was no one who would give up their own home or room to let other people stay there. In that context, the company would also like to be able to reward landlords with shares in the company. That is not so easy, because there are in any case in America a number of laws that stand in the way of such a plan. Uber, for example, was already behind, because they have already had a number of meetings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), so far without result.
Airbnb, however, intends to continue the plan, so they have sent a letter to the SEC to address the problem, reports Axios . This specifically involves classifying landlords as ‘gig economy worker’ or ‘freelancers’, because until now it is only allowed to give investors and employees shares.
How do I get Airbnb shares?
How exactly all of that is going to work is verse two. There are still a lot of technical problems to this type of construction, not to mention what needs to be arranged if, for example, landlords would earn shares in the American company. You would say that the company already has enough regulatory technical problems in the EU, so the chance that this system will be implemented in Europe if the rules in the US change is still small.
It is also striking that Airbnb has not yet made it clear how such a share construction should work. What kind of shares do you get as a landlord? Do you also keep it if you stop (often) renting? Does a representative of the landlords also get a say at shareholders’ meetings? Is Airbnb not then forced to always pay as much profit as possible to shareholders? All questions without concrete answers, but perhaps more will be known if this construction becomes possible at all. There are rumors that Airbnb will enter the stock market in 2019, so it is almost in the end.