Weibo files for Hong Kong secondary listing, as China’s answer to Twitter joins march by Chinese stocks to list nearer home

Name: Chinese social media site Weibo suspends K-pop fan accounts, including BTS follower’s page
Uploaded: 2021-11-19T04:00:20.000Z
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Description: Chinese social media site Weibo suspends K-pop fan accounts, including BTS follower’s page

Nasdaq-listed Weibo files draft prospectus with the Hong Kong stock exchange, paving the way for an IPO

Secondary listing will help Sina Corporation and Alibaba backed Weibo raise funds for content expansion and technology upgrade

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For the third quarter ended September, Weibo’s net profit attributable to shareholders rose more than five times to US$181.7 million from US$33.8 million during the same period a year ago. Photo: Shutterstock

Georgina Lee

Published: 12:00pm, 19 Nov 2021Updated: 3:13pm, 19 Nov 2021

Weibo filed a draft prospectus with the Hong Kong stock exchange on Thursday, as China’s leading microblogging platform seeks a secondary listing to raise capital to expand its content offering and upgrade its technology.

The company, 44.4 per cent owned by Chinese online media giant Sina Corporation, will become the latest US-listed Chinese technology firm to seek a listing closer to home after New York-listed Chinese electric vehicle maker Li Auto raised US$1.7 billion in August, according to data from Refinitiv.

The draft filing had no detailed information on the terms of the IPO, or the fundraising size it was targeting. Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, Citic Securities and CICC are the joint sponsors of the deal.

Often dubbed the “Twitter of China”, Weibo also counts Alibaba Group Holding, owner of the South China Morning Post, as its second largest shareholder with a 29.6 per cent stake. Weibo’s American depositary receipts (ADRs) traded on Nasdaq give the firm a market capitalisation of about US$9.9 billion. Weibo’s ADRs have risen 5.7 per cent year-to-date, closing at US$43.34 on Wednesday.

“We help the content creators on our platform to engage and interact with their followers and build up their social assets to create social value and monetisation opportunities,” it said in the filing.

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Chinese social media site Weibo suspends K-pop fan accounts, including BTS follower’s page

A flurry of US-listed Chinese technology firms have sought secondary listings on the Hong Kong bourse this year amid increased scrutiny from US regulators that could affect their US listing status.