Esports

DouYu Raises $775M in U.S. IPO, Tencent Still Largest Shareholder


Mentioned in this article

  • DouYu, the Chinese livestreaming service backed by Tencent Holdings, has raised $775M USD in its U.S. IPO on the New York Stock Exchange (Nasdaq).
  • The IPO values the company at nearly $4B, with 67.39M American depositary shares sold at $11.50 each. About two-thirds of the total came from selling new shares.
  • Rival platform Huya raised $180M from its U.S. IPO in May 2018, and its shares have more than doubled in value since.

Chinese livestreaming service DouYu Database-Link-e1521645463907 has raised $775M in its United States initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange (Nasdaq).

DouYu sold 67.39M American depositary shares at $11.50 each, with the IPO valuing the company at nearly $4B including restricted shares issued to employees as compensation. According to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. IPO was the largest by any Chinese company so far in 2019, topping the $645M IPO of coffee chain Luckin Coffee Inc.

Roughly two-thirds of the $775M total came from selling new shares, while the remainder came from existing shareholders—including CEO and co-founder Zhang Wenming—selling off holdings. Chinese multinational investment holding conglomerate Tencent Holdings Database-Link-e1521645463907, which invested $632M in the company in March 2018, remains the single largest shareholder in DouYu with a 37.4% stake.

Shares in DouYu began trading today. DouYu originally filed plans for a potential U.S. IPO in April before delaying the plan due to trade tensions between the United States and China. The company initially hoped to raise $500M, but raised the target for its potential raise to $630M from new shares when it reintroduced the IPO plan this month. Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, and CMBI are the underwriters for the IPO.

Related Article: DouYu Revives Delayed U.S. IPO, Now Seeking Up to $630M

A regulatory filing from DouYu notes that the company plans to use 35% of its IPO proceeds to expand out its content portfolio (including esports content), 30% for research, development, and technology, 15% for marketing, and 20% for working capital and potential investments and acquisitions.

Rival Chinese livestreaming platform Huya Database-Link-e1521645463907 raised $180M from its own U.S. IPO in May 2018, and its shares have more than doubled in value since, according to the Wall Street Journal. Huya has also been heavily supported by Tencent, with $461.6M invested to date.







READ SOURCE

Leave a Reply

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you accept our use of cookies.