Kingsoft Cloud Jumps in First Big U.S. IPO Since Luckin Fall
Kingsoft Cloud Raises $510 Million in Upsized IPO Amid Luckin
(Bloomberg) -- Kingsoft Cloud Holdings Ltd. rose 40% in the first major trading debut by a Chinese company since the accounting scandal at Luckin Coffee Inc.
The affiliate of Hong Kong-listed Kingsoft Corp. raised $510 million in its initial public offering, pricing its shares at the midpoint of a $16 to $18 targeted range. The shares closed at $23.84 in New York trading Friday, giving the company a market value of $4.77 billion.
The Beijing-based cloud computing service company, which had marketed 25 million shares, increased the sale to 30 million American depositary shares.
The IPO is the biggest by a Chinese company in the U.S. this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It’s a tricky time for Chinese companies listing in the U.S. after the poster child of Chinese startups, Luckin, was accused of accounting fraud. Luckin’s shares had fallen 74% from its IPO price last year when trading of its stock was suspended in April.
“Given the context regarding China ADR, it’s actually good for quality companies,” Henry He, Kingsoft Cloud’s chief financial officer, said in an interview Friday evening in Hong Kong. “The capital has to be deployed and quality long-only investors will pay more attention to quality companies like us.”
Tense Moment
Financial performance of Kingsoft Cloud has been consolidated with its Hong Kong-listed parent since its inception and there are publicly available track records for investors to analyze, he added.
Its IPO comes at a tense moment for the U.S.-China relationship, after President Donald Trump and Chinese state media have exchanged heated criticisms regarding the origin of coronavirus responsible for the pandemic that has killed more than 269,000 and brought much of the world’s economy to a standstill.
China Liberal Education Holdings Ltd., a Beijing-based educational company, fell 18% in its U.S. trading debut Friday after raising $8 million in its IPO. A third company that went public Friday, Ayala Pharmaceuticals Inc., rose 0.2% after its $55 million offering.
Kingsoft Cloud is the third-biggest cloud services provider in China by revenue with a market share of 5.4%, according to its filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Last year, it lost $160 million on revenue of $568 million. Its chairman, Lei Jun, was a co-founder of smartphone-maker Xiaomi Corp., which will own about a 14% stake in the company after the offering, according to the filings.
The offering was led by JPMorgan Chase & Co., UBS Group AG, Credit Suisse Group AG and China International Capital Corp. The company’s shares are trading on the Nasdaq Global Select market under the symbol KC.
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