Didi Chuxing raises $ 1.5 billion in debt ahead of IPO: Reports

A logo of the giant Didi Chuxing displayed on a building in Hangzhou in the eastern province of Zhejiang China.

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Chinese giant Didi Chuxing is said to raise $ 1.5 billion in debt financing ahead of a US IPO blockbuster, Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing sources familiar with the matter.

According to a Reuters report, also on Friday, the company backed by Softbank plans to file confidentially at the end of this month for a July list led by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

Didi was most recently valued at $ 62 billion following a fundraising round in August, according to PitchBook data. Both Bloomberg and Reuters report that the company could consider a valuation of 100 billion dollars at the time of its debut on Wall Street.

A spokesman for the US company reached by CNBC declined to comment.

An IPI Didi could be one of the largest IPOs this year and one of the largest Chinese IPOs in the US since Alibaba was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2014. The IPO Ant Group, which would be was the largest in history, was pulled by regulators just days before it began trading in Shanghai and Hong Kong in November. The IPO suspension came shortly after Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, which owns about a third of the Ant Group, made several comments that were critical of China’s financial regulator. Ant Group was also an early investor in Didi.

In May, Didi President Jean Liu told CNBC that the company’s main business was profitable and resumed after the coronavirus outbreak hit China, its domestic market. Liu did not give specific figures or say what profitability measure he was referring to.

Didi has been named on the CNBC Disruptor 50 list for the past three consecutive years, most recently ranking 30th on last year’s list. Headquartered in Beijing, the company operates in China and eight overseas markets, including Australia and Japan.

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