Tencent-Backed Brokerage Said Poised to Raise $90 Million in IPO

(Bloomberg) -- Futu Holdings Ltd., the online Chinese broker backed by Tencent Holdings Ltd., is poised to raise $90 million after pricing its U.S. initial public offering at the top of the targeted range, people with knowledge of the matter said.

The company plans to sell 7.5 million American depositary shares at $12 each, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. It marketed the shares at $10 to $12 apiece.

Futu, which helps Chinese investors trade overseas stocks, originally sought to raise about $300 million when it filed confidentially for an IPO, people familiar with the matter said in October. The company is the fourth-largest online retail broker in Hong Kong based on revenue for the six months through June of last year, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission. It brokered about $116 billion in trades in 2018.

An external representative for Futu said she couldn’t immediately comment.

The company set its IPO target to $130.8 million when it officially filed to go public in February. This week, it scaled back the size of the share sale after striking a deal to sell $70 million in stock in a private placement to General Atlantic.

The listing is the latest in a wave by companies backed by Chinese tech magnate Pony Ma’s Tencent, whose investment arm has stakes in more than 100 startups worth $1 billion or more. Sixteen companies Tencent has invested in went public in 2018, a Tencent executive said in February.

Futu’s share sale was arranged by Goldman Sachs Group Inc., UBS Group AG, Credit Suisse Group AG, HSBC Holdings Plc and BOCI Asia Ltd. The shares are expected to trade on the Nasdaq Global Market under the ticker “FHL.”

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