Meituan expected to file Hong Kong IPO application this week
Apart from food delivery, Meituan is a go-to-destination in China for booking movie tickets, hotels and travel packages
Meituan Dianping, China’s biggest platform for on-demand services, plans to file an initial public offering application to the Hong Kong stock exchange on Friday, according to people familiar with the matter.
The offering will likely be the city’s second multibillion-dollar listing by a tech company following smartphone vendor Xiaomi, which is expected to float in early July.
Meituan has hired Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and China Renaissance as its underwriters, two people familiar with the information said, asking not to be identified as the information is private. The company declined to comment on its listing plan.
The size and valuation of the offering remains unclear at this stage. According to an earlier report by Bloomberg, the company could raise about US$6 billion by selling a 10 per cent stake. The internet giant held pre-IPO marketing activity earlier this month, according to the people familiar.
Founded in 2010 by Wang Xing, a Tsinghua University alumnus, Meituan is on a mission to make people “eat better and live better”, according to the company. Starting as a Groupon like group-buying site, the Beijing-based start-up merged with rival Dianping in 2015 to create China’s largest lifestyle platform business.