Perfect World targets US$117m from Nasdaq ADS offering

Perfect World, a Beijing-based developer of 3D online computer games, expects to raise US$117 million from an initial public offering of American depositary shares, according to a regulatory filing.

The offer, at US$13 per ADS, is priced in the middle of its indicative range of US$12 to US$14. The company will offer nine million ADS and a group of shareholders will sell 2.8 million ADS to raise a further US$36.4 million.

Perfect World's arrival on the Nasdaq comes amid surging interest in online games among mainland players. Revenue from the mainland's online games sector increased 74 per cent last year to US$816 million, according to researcher IDC. Revenue could reach US$3 billion by 2011, representing annual growth of 30.2 per cent from 2006 to 2011, the centre said.

Revenue from domestically developed online games reached US$500 million last year, accounting for 64.8 per cent of total online game revenue in the mainland, according to IDC tally.

Perfect World launched its first three 3D multi-player online role-playing games - Perfect World, Legend of Martial Arts and Perfect World II - in 2006, and by the first quarter of this year the games had averaged about 237,000 concurrent users in the mainland.

The company turned profitable in the first quarter of this year, reporting net income of US$5.1 million on sales of US$11.3 million after a full-year loss of US$3.6 million in 2006 on revenue of US$12.8 million.