Bitcoin Firm Canaan Loses Credit Suisse as Lead in Smaller IPO

(Bloomberg) -- Canaan Inc., a maker of Bitcoin mining machines, lost the lead left bank for its U.S. initial public offering and has scaled back its offering.

The company plans to offer 10 million American depository shares at $9 to $11 apiece to raise as much as $110 million, according to an amended filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Canaan previously listed the size of IPO as much as $400 million.

Credit Suisse Group AG, which was listed in an October filing as the lead underwriter of the offering, isn’t mentioned in Wednesday’s revised filing.

The Swiss bank was concerned whether the offering could secure sufficient orders, according to people with knowledge of the matter. 36Kr Holdings Inc., a Chinese news website, cut its IPO size by almost two-thirds to about $20 million and the shares fell 10% in its Nasdaq debut. Credit Suisse was one of the banks that led the share sale. It is also advising Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. on its planned Hong Kong share sale, which could be the biggest listing in the city this year.

Citigroup Inc., China Renaissance and CMB International Capital Ltd. are leading the listing of Canaan. Representatives for Canaan and Credit Suisse declined to comment.

Canaan reported a net loss of $33 million on revenue of $134 million during the nine months ended June 30, compared with a profit of $21 million on $346 million in revenue during the same period last year.

The company attempted a Hong Kong listing before letting its application lapse last November. It had planned to seek as much as $1 billion then, people with knowledge of the matter said at the time.

Each American depository share in the offering represents 15 class A shares, which carry one vote each. The company’s Class B shares entitle holders to 15 votes each.

Canaan plans to list its shares on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol CAN.

--With assistance from Zheping Huang.

To contact the reporters on this story: Crystal Tse in New York at ctse44@bloomberg.net;Carol Zhong in Hong Kong at yzhong71@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Liana Baker at lbaker75@bloomberg.net, Michael Hytha, Fion Li

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