Didi Chuxing has filed to go public in what could be one of the largest tech initial public offerings (IPO) this year. The Chinese ride-hailing app released its prospectus at the end of last week, setting the company up to raise billions in its US stock exchange debut in July.
The company did not disclose the size of its raise, but Reuters reported that Didi could raise around $10bn at a valuation of close to $100bn. Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal cited a valuation of $70bn. A successful IPO could mark a significant win for major shareholders Uber and SoftBank.
Uber currently owns 12.8% of the shares in the company after selling its Chinese ride-hailing business to Didi in 2016. SoftBank’s Vision Fund holds a 21.5% stake in the company. Cheng Wei, Didi’s 38-year-old founder, owns 7% of the company’s shares and controls 15.4% of its voting power before the IPO, according to the prospectus. The former Alibaba employee founded Didi in 2012. Chinese tech multinational Tencent holds 6.8% of shares.
The company reported $21.6bn in revenue last year. However, it suffered a $1.6bn net loss due to the Covid-19 pandemic. As China is recovering from the health crisis, revenue more than doubled to hit $6.4bn last quarter. The company also reported a net income of $837m before certain payouts to shareholders and a comprehensive net income of $95m for the quarter.
At a valuation of $10bn, Didi’s listing would be the biggest Chinese share offering in the US since Alibaba raised $25bn in 2014.
The company going public would also mark a monumental year for Chinese tech public floats. In January, short-video app Kuaishou raised more than $6bn on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX), in what is currently the city’s biggest IPO of the year. Last month, JD Logistics, the delivery arm of Chinese ecommerce giant JD.com, raised $3.1bn in its HKEX IPO.
Didi filed to go public under the business name Xiaoju Kauizhi with Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase leading the offering.
According to GlobalData’s company profile, Didi offers app-based transportation services such as taxi, bus, designated driving, enterprise solutions, bike-sharing, e-bike sharing and automobile solutions, and food delivery services.
Its DiDi platform provides 10 billion passenger trips a year. The company serves 550 million users in more than 400 cities across China, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Australia, Colombia and Japan.