Uber Cuts Losses as Revenue Soars; Investor App Offers Shares in Classic Cars
QUEST: All Summer, we're looking at the future of mobility, future forward. Uber's financial health improved greatly in the seventh quarter, revenue was up and losses were down. Samuel is here to put it into perspective. When I look at those numbers, they slightly massaged because of external won-all factors.</s>SAMUEL BURKE, CNN BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY NEWS CORRESPONDENT: That's right - -</s>QUEST: And also by some of those markets that they had withdrawn from.</s>BURKE: Yes, and sometimes not by choice. There's just no other option for them, but to leave. So they've got a bunch of money from there. So I was interested to see where they're going to put that money into. So if we just look at the list on the screen here, you'll see e-scooters. Who would have thought just a few months ago that those electronic scooters -- have you tried one?</s>QUEST: I have --</s>BURKE: OK, who would have thought that the electronic scooters would be higher on their list than serve-driving cars. They didn't even mention it in their food delivery service, Uber Eats, Khosrowshahi; the new CEO says they're going to plow money into that as well as their main service in Middle Eastern India. But I've got to get back to the fact that they didn't even mention self- driving cars. They shattered their big trucks that were all funfair just a few months ago, gone, no mention, didn't talk about the death in Arizona of course. So for me, it's fascinating to look at this company, and we're not quite sure where self-driving will play in the driver seat in overseas --</s>QUEST: How is the fundamental business doing? The core business. I mean, at the end of the day, I'm never quite sure how many other people do use these delivery things and these food services and all the other things but the core Uber ride.</s>BURKE: Their fundamental ride service incredibly shown. I was actually impressed to see much growth as we did see, and the other places we saw growth, I was also surprised because I thought some of these side products won't be as strong as they were.</s>QUEST: Is there a feeling that the crisis may be over that the changes have taken place.</s>BURKE: The very fact that we're getting a quarterly report before there's a quarterly report -- this is of course, not a publicly traded company, I think says everything that there's transparencies starting, there aren't going to be big surprises when this company's IPO is $62 billion evaluation. Will you be buying shares at their IPO like you did SnapChat? Oh, I just had to bring it up.</s>QUEST: I was about --</s>BURKE: You were about to say it was a good report --</s>QUEST: No --</s>BURKE: Now, it wasn't.</s>QUEST: I was about to let you have a ding --</s>BURKE: Oh --</s>QUEST: Of the bell --</s>BURKE: Oh --</s>QUEST: But then I changed my mind --</s>BURKE: I should have kept my big mouth shut.</s>QUEST: You reminded me of my Snap, it's only down 52 percent.</s>BURKE: Only --</s>QUEST: Only -- your Christmas present, go on, thank you. Even if some people are ditching car ownership in favor of Uber, one starter believes that the classic collectible car will always soar in value and be the sort of thing that you and I want to invest in. Now, there's a new cheap way to invest in a hobby that's normally reserved for the exceptionally wealthy. Those who can afford to pay half a million, three-quarters of a million, a million plus. It's called Rally Road and it offer shares in classic cars as an asset class. Like this 1955 -- so 1956 Porsche Speedster. You can't drive the cars, that's the important thing. They're inspected, insured and then they are secured somewhere where you and I can't get our hands on them. Two thousand shares are offered for each car which can start for as little as $50 each. Now, let me give you an example. The Porsche IPO was set at $425,000. Each share was sold at $212.50. So if you take the one that happened at 2013 to today, this car has increased in value by 91 percent. That sounds like a really good investment. So my first question for Christopher, I mean, from the chief executive. Christopher, my first question to you, sir --</s>CHRISTOPHER BRUNE, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, RALLY ROAD: Absolutely --</s>QUEST: How easy is it to get out of these investments once you are in them?</s>BRUNE: Pleasure to meet you. Thank you for having me first of all. We built this platform with liquidity in mind. So we didn't want to build a crowd-funding site where it was invest today and ten years later, maybe get your money back plus some. So we built an idea of something called the trading window, and essentially once per month, we open up this trading window, we bring buyers and sellers into the room, very much like you would have in a traditional car auction. But we're really auctioning off the shares, so that gives us price discovery, that gives us liquidity and that allows people to buy in and out of the different assets over a period of time.</s>QUEST: And from what you've seen in terms of the trading range --</s>BRUNE: Yes --</s>QUEST: Is there sufficient liquidity to get rid of -- to exit investments.</s>BRUNE: So to this day, we've done ten initial offerings are sent to our version of</s>IPO -- QUEST: You bought ten cars?</s>BRUNE: Sure --</s>QUEST: You bought a car, you then put it in storage, insure it in storage --</s>BRUNE: Correct --</s>QUEST: At what point do you only buy the car if the IPO is successful?</s>BRUNE: Yes, in most cases we bring the cars from a collector or a dealer or a broker who has access to that particular asset, we identify it, we study it, we make sure it is what we believe it to be, and then we bring it to market and raise the money to acquire that asset.</s>QUEST: And what does the -- what does the investor get? I mean, obviously, when the car is sold, it makes a profit --</s>BRUNE: Absolutely --</s>QUEST: Divided by less fees --</s>BRUNE: Yes --</s>QUEST: But --</s>BRUNE: Yes, well, but we're seeing people use this in different ways. One of the main ways is they're thinking about it as almost a savings program towards a collectible they want to have in the future. They have fantastic returns out of it. And then the part of ownership that comes with building that collection.</s>QUEST: But they don't get to see the car.</s>BRUNE: They absolutely do. So we have fantastic partnerships, we have one with Mecum Auctions, we're actually doing a pop-up at Mandarake(ph), at the big car next week. We'll have one of our assets there that we'll be showing off. We've done a pop-up here in New York City where we had three of our assets in our Soho warehouse --</s>QUEST: I love --</s>BRUNE: Showroom --</s>QUEST: You're the chief exec --</s>BRUNE: Yes --</s>QUEST: And you are very deliberate in what you're talking about. You don't say three of our cars, you say three of our assets, I understand they're assets --</s>BRUNE: Yes --</s>QUEST: You want this to be thought of as an investment --</s>BRUNE: Yes, absolutely --</s>QUEST: Rather than as a geeks built for petrol heads.</s>BRUNE: This is not a geeks for petrol heads. Most of our early investors are actually more financially burnt. The young people that's sophisticated, they're investing on Robin Hood, they're investing on Coinbase, and now they've got a way to diversify their portfolio, and beyond that be diversified within the asset class across multiple different cars.</s>QUEST: So how have you -- or what sort of rate of return have you seen, if we're going to do finances, what sort of rate of return average of return have you seen?</s>BRUNE: So on our first two trading windows, both our assets in our marketplace for about six months, one is up 3.25 percent and one is up 4.25 percent over that period of time. In general, the collected car market has had a great ten years, it's up about 400 percent since 10 years ago. So really, what we look for our assets back and deliver those type of returns into the future. That's where we're trying to push it --</s>QUEST: Give me the perfect vehicle --</s>BRUNE: Perfect vehicle --</s>QUEST: The perfect vehicle for you for this sort of assets --</s>BRUNE: I'm Porsche person, so I'm a little bit bias, but I actually can do something for you, a Jaguar --</s>QUEST: Oh --</s>BRUNE: Up to date, 20 --</s>QUEST: A Jaguar, I used to have one, you know, and a J6, a massive old thing, so never actually worked very well, but it was a beautiful car.</s>BRUNE: Well, here's one from 1993, at that point in time it was the fastest car in the world only to be eclipsed by the McLaren F1. The McLaren F1 is now $15 million to $20 million asset. We have what is basically a very comfortable car from the '90s that we're offering it $495,000. We think it's fantastic investment, the checks, all the balances --</s>QUEST: That's how you're selling it --</s>BRUNE: Providence --</s>QUEST: You're selling it --</s>BRUNE: Yes, we'll be launching that --</s>QUEST: Oh, you're selling it -- you're selling it as a --</s>BRUNE: Yes --</s>QUEST: So how much per share? So you have 200 divide or everybody shares - -</s>BRUNE: In that actual asset, it's 5,000 shares, so it's $99 per share, very accessible. And there's no minimum, so there's literally one share you could purchase, there's no commission to the management fees. We tried to make this zero velvet ropes. So this is car collecting for everybody, it's called democratization.</s>QUEST: Fascinating --</s>BRUNE: Thank you sir.</s>QUEST: We might actually have to have a QUEST MEANS BUSINESS car, we'll talk later.</s>BRUNE: We'll have you down to our showroom in Soho when it opens up and we'll show you what we're all about.</s>QUEST: OK, thank you very much indeed, very interesting.</s>BRUNE: Thank you sir.</s>QUEST: And you can watch NFL games in Mexico, NBA games in London and MLB games in Australia. Now, it's European football's turn to send players on a very long road trip across the Atlantic.