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Didi files to raise US$4 billion in New York IPO, helping China’s dominant ride-hailing app catch up with Uber in value
- Didi, which filed under the name Xiaoju Kuaizhi, plans to sell 288 million shares at US$13 to US$14 a share
- The US IPO could value the ride-hailing company at up to US$67 billion
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Didi Chuxing has applied to raise up to US$4 billion in New York, as China’s dominant ride-hailing app pushes ahead with the largest initial public offering (IPO) by a Chinese company in the United States since 2014 under a cloud of antitrust investigations at home.
The Beijing-based company, filing under the name Xiaoju Kuaizhi, plans to sell 288 million American depositary shares (ADS) at between US$13 and US$14 each, according to a regulatory filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday.
The offering values Didi at about US$67 billion at the top end of its price range, almost 8 per cent higher than its US$62 billion valuation during the last fundraising round in 2019. The flotation of Didi’s stock would be the biggest by a Chinese company since 2014, when this newspaper’s parent Alibaba Group Holding raised US$25 billion in New York. The IPO also would be one of the largest in the US in the past decade.
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Didi’s fundraising target is a substantial climb down from the US$10 billion contemplated earlier, which would have valued the company at up to US$100 billion as it marks its ninth birthday this month, putting it a nose ahead of Uber Technologies’ US$95.1 billion as of Thursday’s trading close in New York.
China’s regulators have begun an antitrust investigation into the business practices of Didi, with 90 per cent share of China’s US$3.9 trillion ride-hailing market, Reuters reported on June 17, citing sources familiar with the matter. Didi declined to comment, calling the Reuters report “unsubstantiated speculation”.
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