Meituan’s chief billionaire-in-waiting hopes for ‘no war or black swan’ during IPO book building process
Meituan Dianping is seeking to raise as much as US$4.4 billion in a Hong Kong IPO, which would make it third-biggest debut in the city this year behind China Tower and Xiaomi
It was 9.44am on Tuesday and Wang Xing, chairman and chief executive of Meituan Dianping, sent out a message to his 204,780 Fanfou social media followers: “Hope war does not break out or there are other black swan events in the next nine days.”
It’s unclear what prompted the 39-year-old to send out the message, but Wang and his management team were due to host an investor lunch that day at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Wan Chai, Hong Kong, kick-starting the book building exercise for Meituan’s US$4.4 billion IPO.
During this crucial period, the company’s underwriters will accept orders from fund managers and gauge the strength of demand before deciding what price to place on the offering.
Wang Xing, who seldom gives interviews, held a press conference with his team at the Island Shangri-La on Thursday about Meituan’s IPO. He owns 11 per cent of Meituan’s shares and will become China’s newest minted billionaire after the IPO. The team played a corporate video, read from prepared notes and only took four questions from journalists.
“In the short term, we do not intend to expand overseas,” said Wang Xing, when asked about growth plans. “Given that there’s a population of 1.3 billion and 8 million restaurants in China, there’s still a lot of room for domestic growth.”