Lyft Dismisses The Idea That It Even Wants A Buyer At All

Image courtesy of Lyft

A day after Uber reportedly shrugged off the idea of acquiring ride-hailing rival Lyft, the latter company says it’s not on the market, you know, anyway. 

Lyft president John Zimmer said Tuesday that his company isn’t looking for a suitor despite several reports to the contrary, Business Insider reports.

Instead, Zimmer says the reports have been misconstrued: Lyft was never seeking buyers, it was just approached by one.

“Getting approached and then having it characterized as us wanting to sell the business and failing to do so is a large mischaracterization,” he tells BI. “If the company is approached, it doesn’t mean the company is looking.”

Zimmer didn’t specify which company approached Lyft or how many discussions the ride-hailing venture had taken part in.

Rumors that Lyft was on the market began earlier this summer when the company hired Qatalyst Partners. Bloomberg reported the deal was meant to solicit interest into a possible acquisition.

Last week, the New York Times reported that Lyft had held informal acquisition talks with Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Apple Inc. and Chinese ride-hailing company Didi Chuxing. However, the company reportedly sought as much as $9 billion, and failed to receive interest from outside parties, sources said.

Lyft president: We were never looking to sell our business and we’re not for sale [Business Insider]

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