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SHANGHAI, China — Chinese e-commerce company Pinduoduo Inc. has raised $1.6 billion after pricing its US initial public offering at the top end of a marketed range, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.
The Shanghai-based shopping platform backed by Tencent Holdings Ltd. has priced 85.6 million American depositary shares at $19 each, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the details are private. The shares were marketed at $16 to $19 each, according to a regulatory filing.
PDD’s fundraising is the fourth-largest IPO in the US this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The listing is exceeded only by Axa SA’s U.S. unit at $3.2 billion, Pagseguro Digital Ltd. at $2.6 billion and iQiyi Inc. at $2.4 billion, the data show.
A representative for PDD declined to comment. Caixin reported the pricing earlier, citing an unidentified person.
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Tencent and Sequoia Capital, two of PDD’s principal shareholders, were seeking to buy as much as $250 million each of the new shares, the filing shows.
PDD, melding social media to couponing on a platform with more than 1 million active merchants, has grown from its start in 2015 to handle 4.3 billion orders last year, according to the filing. It handled $41.8 billion of transactions for the year ended June 30.
The offering was led by Credit Suisse Group AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and China International Capital Corp. Pinduoduo is set to trade under the symbol PDD.
By Crystal Tse and Alex Barinka, with assistance from Yoojung Lee and David Ramli; editors: Elizabeth Fournier, Ben Scent, Michael Hytha and Matthew Monks.
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