‘Chinese Twitter’ Weibo seeks $385 million in Hong Kong secondary listing
Shanghai, China, Dec 3 (EFE).- Social media platform Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, aims to raise $385 million in a Hong Kong secondary listing, to debut on Dec. 8.
In a statement sent to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Thursday night, Weibo said it will offer 11 million shares at HK$272.8 ($35) per unit.
Forty-five percent of the net proceeds will be used to grow the user base and “enhance our content ecosystem,” 25 percent to research and development to “enhance our user experience and monetization capabilities,” 20 percent to strategic alliances, investments and acquisitions, and the remaining 10 percent to working capital.
Weibo was founded in 2009 by Chinese technology company Sina, and four years later it received a significant investment from e-commerce giant Alibaba, which continues to be its “largest customer and an important strategic partner,” the company says in its investor brochure.
In 2014, the company went public in New York in an operation that brought in some $285 million, and currently its market value stands at just under $7.9 billion.
Amid tensions between China and the United States and the increasing supervision of Beijing in the sector, several Chinese technology companies such as Baidu or Trip.com have sought IPOs in Hong Kong.
The latest example of this is the “Chinese Uber,” Didi, which debuted on Wall Street in June and which has already announced it will withdraw from New York to offer shares in the former British colony after months of tension with the Chinese authorities. EFE
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