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Tencent-Backed PDD Is Said to Price $1.6 Billion U.S. IPO at Top

Tencent-Backed PDD Is Said to Price $1.6 Billion U.S. IPO at Top

(Bloomberg) -- Chinese e-commerce company Pinduoduo Inc. has raised $1.6 billion after pricing its U.S. initial public offering at the top end of a marketed range, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

The Shanghai-based shopping platform backed by Tencent Holdings Ltd. has priced 85.6 million American depositary shares at $19 each, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the details are private. The shares were marketed at $16 to $19 each, according to a regulatory filing.

PDD’s fundraising is the fourth-largest IPO in the U.S. this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The listing is exceeded only by Axa SA’s U.S. unit at $3.2 billion, Pagseguro Digital Ltd. at $2.6 billion and iQiyi Inc. at $2.4 billion, the data show.

A representative for PDD declined to comment. Caixin reported the pricing earlier, citing an unidentified person.

Tencent and Sequoia Capital, two of PDD’s principal shareholders, were seeking to buy as much as $250 million each of the new shares, the filing shows.

PDD, melding social media to couponing on a platform with more than 1 million active merchants, has grown from its start in 2015 to handle 4.3 billion orders last year, according to the filing. It handled $41.8 billion of transactions for the year ended June 30.

The offering was led by Credit Suisse Group AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and China International Capital Corp. Pinduoduo is set to trade under the symbol PDD.

--With assistance from Yoojung Lee and David Ramli.

To contact the reporters on this story: Crystal Tse in Hong Kong at ctse44@bloomberg.net;Alex Barinka in San Francisco at abarinka2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Elizabeth Fournier at efournier5@bloomberg.net, ;Ben Scent at bscent@bloomberg.net, Michael Hytha, Matthew Monks

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.