COUNTRY REPORT CHINAThe Chinese company has kicked off IPO
preparatory work and is planning to list in
the first half of next year, said the people.
Founded in 2010 and headquartered
in Shanghai, ANE is a less-than-truckload
logistics company. It provides road
transportation and delivery services for
cargos between 15 kilograms and three
tons.
Apart from Carlyle and Warburg Pincus,
ANE has attracted investments from
Sequoia Capital, Goldman Sachs and CDH
Investments. CDH invested US$150m in
the company in 2016, according to ANE’s
website.
ANE could not immediately be reached
to comment.
A number of Chinese logistics companies
have listed in the US in the past few years.
ZTO Express raised US$1.4bn from a NYSE
IPO in 2016 and Best raised US$450m from
a NYSE float in 2017.
› 111 FILES FOR US$200M US IPO
Chinese online pharmacy and health
service platform 111 has made a public filing
to the SEC for an IPO to raise US$200m.
Pre-marketing will begin soon, according
to a person with knowledge of the
transaction. The company has not decided
whether its American depository shares
will go public on the NYSE or Nasdaq.
As well as its online retail business for
pharmaceutical products, 111 operates an
internet service where doctors give medical
consultations and prescriptions to patients.
Founded in 2010, the company was known
as New Peak Group before changing its
name to 111,Inc this April.
Proceeds will be spent on R&D,
particularly in technology such as artificial
intelligence, big data and cloud-based
solutions. It also plans to expand its sales
and marketing capacity to broaden its
customer base.
As of June this year, there were
approximately 15 million registered users
on the company’s flagship website 111.
com.cn and mobile applications.
The company posted a net loss of
Rmb129m for the first six months of this
year. It had yearly losses of Rmb249m last
year and Rmb363m in 2016.
CICC , Citigroup and JP Morgan are the leads
on the float.› COOTEK FILES FOR NYSE IPOChinese software developer COOTEK has
applied to the SEC to launch an NYSE IPO
to raise about US$100m.A week-long premarketing period will
begin as soon as this week, a person with
knowledge of the transaction said.
Based in Shanghai, the startup is best
known for its TouchPal smart input
keyboard app that runs on the Android and
iOS operating systems. It processes AI and
big data analytical technologies to support
more than 110 languages.
The Cayman-domiciled company has a
product portfolio of 15 mobile applications
with average monthly active users of 22
million as of June this year.
Various Qiming entities and Sequoia
Capital are major shareholders in the
company with respective stakes of 18.2%
and 17.9%. They were involved in the
US$100m round-D venture capital funding
secured by CooTek last year.
CooTek posted net income of US$3.5m
for the first six months of this year. It had
annual losses of US$23.7m last year and
US$30.7m in 2016.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch , Citigroup and
Credit Suisse are lead managers of the float.› WEIDAI FILES FOR NYSE IPOWEIDAI , a Chinese provider of financing
services to small businesses, has registered
with the SEC for a NYSE listing to raise
about US$100m.
Citigroup , Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley
are the joint bookrunners for the deal.
The company connects borrowers, the
majority of which are small and micro
enterprise owners, to online investors and
institutional funding partners.
Established in 2011, Weidai has a
network of 517 service centres across more
than 300 cities in China.
Founder and Chairman Hong Yao is
the controlling stakeholder with a 73.3%
equity interest in the company, including
a 13.2% stake holding via Deqing Jinxiu
Management Consultancy Partnership, an
entity he owns with his wife.
Weidai posted net income of Rmb307m
for the first six months of 2018. It had
yearly net income of Rmb475m in 2017 and
Rmb291m in 2016.› CHINA EVERBRIGHT PLAN HITS SHARESHong Kong-listed CHINA EVERBRIGHT
INTERNATIONAL’S shares fell last Tuesday after
it announced a plan to raise HK$9.96bn
from a rights issue.
Shares of the energy and infrastructure-
focused investment company plunged as
much as 26% to HK$6.51, hitting a five-year
low.
It plans to sell 1.66bn rights shares at
HK$6 each on a 10-for-27 basis. The price
represents a discount of about 31.4% to theWuzhou stops seven projects
Restructuring Chinese developer halts work after defaulting on debtDebt-laden WUZHOU INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS
has suspended work at seven of its projects
due to financial difficulties, according to an
exchange filing.
The Hong Kong-listed property company
said it was negotiating a debt restructuring
with its creditors and planned to sell some
assets to help repay the debts.
However, it stressed in its August 13 filing
that its assets far exceeded its liabilities
and said its management was confident
of resolving the problem by convincing its
creditors to delay repayment and negotiating
additional funding.
“The management is of the view that the
current financial difficulties encountered
by the company will not impose imminent
impact on the company’s business operations
and continuity except that it is inevitable that
the future revenue of the company will be
reduced as a result of the disposition of the
company’s assets,” it said in the filing.
It further said that the company’s
management was not able to tell to “what
extent the company’s assets are requiredto be disposed of in order to meet the
repayment of the debts”.
Wuzhou develops and operates wholesale
markets and commercial complexes in
China. The company said on July 5 it had
received demands from creditors related to
defaults of Rmb1bn (US$145m) under its loan
agreements, which triggered a cross-default
on its US$300m 13.75% US dollar bonds due
September 26 2018.
On August 10, the company said it was in
default or had received demands for early
repayment on principal totalling Rmb2.495bn
due to breaches of loan agreements, based on
a legal opinion from the company’s lawyers.
It also appointed RSM Corporate Advisory
(Hong Kong) as an independent restructuring
adviser to help it assess its financial position
and work towards a “mutually acceptable
restructuring solution” with its creditors.
Moody’s on July 9 cut Wuzhou’s corporate
family rating to Ca from Caa1 and its senior
unsecured rating to Ca from Caa2. The
ratings outlook is negative.
CAROL CHAN