Photographer: Qilai Shen / Bloomberg
Photographer: Qilai Shen / Bloomberg
Kuaishou Technology, the main rival of China’s ByteDance Ltd. seeks to raise up to $ 5.4 billion in Hong Kong in what would be the world’s largest initial internet offering since Uber Technologies Inc.
Short video start, supported by Tencent Holdings Ltd. sells 365 million shares for $ 105 to $ 115 each, according to the terms of the agreement reached by Bloomberg News. The company will start taking orders from investors from Monday to January 29 and will be listed on February 5.
Kuaishou is trying the biggest IPO in the world since selling Uber shares in the US for $ 8.1 billion in May 2019, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The Chinese startup’s IPO will also give a new impetus to Hong Kong’s already hot capital market and could become the largest in Asia since Budweiser Brewing Co.’s $ 5.8 billion float.
Kuaishou, which means “quick hand” in Chinese, is one of China’s greatest success stories of the past decade, part of a generation of start-ups that have thrived with Tencent support. Along with ByteDance, Father TikTok, the outfit co-created by Su Hua in 2013 was the pioneer of live streaming and bite-sized video format that has been adopted around the world by entities such as Facebook Inc. Kuaishou’s imminent debut could test investors’ appetite for a bigger rival, which was last valued at $ 180 billion.
Kuaishou’s bid attracted 10 cornerstone investors, who agreed to subscribe to $ 2.45 billion worth of shares, based on the midpoint of the range traded. The company includes The Capital Group, Temasek Holdings Pte, GIC Pte, BlackRock Inc. and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, the terms show, confirming a new Bloomberg News report. The cornerstone investors agreed to hold shares for six months in exchange for a guaranteed early allotment.
Kuaishou’s rating could more than double after his Hong Kong IPO. A top price will put the Chinese company at $ 60.9 billion, up from $ 28.6 billion in a round of financing last year, according to Pitchbook. Even at the low end, Kuaishou will still be valued at $ 55.6 billion.
ByteDance has long been a rumored IPO candidate, but last year was embroiled in a fight against the US ban on TikTok after the video service was tagged the threat to national security. Social media giant was in talks to raise $ 2 billion before listing some of its Hong Kong business, Bloomberg News reported in November.
Kuaishou had an average of 262 million daily active users on average since September, he said prospect. It is still less than half of the 600 million on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok. That being said, Kuaishou’s revenue rose 49 percent to 40.7 billion yuan ($ 6.3 billion) in the first nine months of last year, after intensifying monetization efforts through advertising and e-commerce. While offering free access to its main platform, the startup takes some of the advice that users give to their favorite live streams that go viral, synchronize their lips with the latest pop songs and play video games.
Tencent has a stake of about 21.6% in Kuaishou, and other financiers include venture capital firms DCM, DST Global and Sequoia Capital China, the prospectus shows. Shares of Tencent rose up 6.4% to an all-time high since trading in Hong Kong earlier this month.
Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Corp. and China Renaissance Holdings Ltd. are joint sponsors of the transaction.
– With the assistance of Dominic Lau and Zheping Huang
(Add Kuaishou’s assessment in the sixth paragraph.)