Category: IPO

China Youran Dairy to raise up to $800 million in HK IPO

China Youran Dairy Group has started briefing investors on Tuesday as it looks to raise up to $800 million in its Hong Kong initial public offering (IPO), according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

The sources could not be named as the information was not yet made public.

The company, backed by private equity group PAG, is expected to launch the deal next week, the sources added.

A final agreement on the size of the fund-raising will be made following the initial discussions with investors, they said.

It plans to use the cash raised to expand its breeding herd and ramp up feed and raw milk production, according to its filings with the Hong Kong stock exchange.

Youran Dairy’s IPO was approved by the stock exchange’s listing committee last week, allowing it to start the IPO process.

It purchased two farming hubs located in Ying and Yutian counties for NZ$514 million owned by New Zealand’s Fonterra last year.

PAG owns 42.89% of Youran Dairy while Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group holds a further 40% and the filing showed PAG will not be a controlling shareholder following the deal.

PAG has held its stake in Youran Dairy since 2015.

A pre-deal term sheet seen by Reuters shows the company plans to sell 15% of its shares in the IPO which would value it at more than $5.3 billion.

Youran Dairy did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.

10 Indian startups joins unicorn club in 2020 despite COVID-19 pandemic

While the COVID-19 pandemic is severely impacting businesses across various sectors and countries, the startup scene in India is singing a different tune having seen 10 new startups reaching the $1 billion valuations in 2020.

The list is compiled by Venture Intelligence and includes:

  1. Pine Labs – PoS and merchant platform serving over 150,000 merchants in 3,700 cities across Asia and the Middle East
  2. Nykaa – Online beauty-turned-lifestyle retailer that sells a range of skin and body care products, naturals, and fine fragrances
  3. Unacademy – Ed-tech startup with a vast network of over 180,000 educators and over 35,000 subscribers
  4. Razorpay – Payments solutions startup that authenticates and accept payments made through credit cards, debit cards, internet banking, and digital wallets
  5. Postman – Enterprise SaaS collaboration platform for application programming interface development used by over 11 million developers across the globe
  6. Zerodha – Platform for companies to accelerate their pace and effectiveness of software development
  7. Cars24 – Intermediary platform for buying and selling pre-owned vehicles
  8. Zenoti – Formerly known as ManageMySpa, Zenoti helps close to 1,000 spa and salon brands across 50 countries to manage and digitize appointments and PoS
  9. VerSe Innovation – Parent company of popular news aggregator platform Dailyhunt
  10. Glance – Subsidiary of InMobi Group, Glance delivers AI-driven personalized content in multiple languages across its platform

The report explains that while the pandemic has indeed drastically impact businesses across sectors including hospitality, travel, and transportation, startups within edtech, fintech, and healthcare sectors attracted huge investor interest during the year.

In fact, the year 2020 also witnessed the first unicorns coming from the Indian social media and content space: Glance and Dailyhunt.

Skanda Jayaraman, the managing director and head of investment banking at Spark Capital Advisors India commented on the situation, saying that “2020 saw the emergence of digitization of a lot of consumer patterns, from education to essentials, central and long-standing purchasing habits were disrupted at its core, and most of these changes are here to stay for 2021 and much beyond,”

It is this major shift in consumption patterns that is the reason why digitech companies and startups are finding themselves benefiting immensely from a funding and valuation re-rating, Jayaraman explained.

Additionally, a total of 14 Indian companies also saw their stocks listed on the BSE and National Stock Exchange during 2020. Among the 14 stocks trading, four of them ended the year 100% higher than their issue price.

This high expectations is likely to continue well throughout 2021 as several well-known internet startups, inclluding four unicorns which plan to list on the Mumbai stock exchanges this year. The four unicorns are online retailer Flipkart, food delivery company Zomato, ecommerce logistic service provider Delhivery and top online insurance marketplace Policybazaar.

Naturally, this will have a significant impact on the wider Indian stock market, which have been predominantly occupied by state-owned companies and family owned conglomerates.

India is currently the third largest ecosystem in the world, after the United States and China. The country is home to 21 unicorns which have a total valuation of US$73.2 billion.

Taranjit Singh Sandhu, India’s abassador to the United States even shared in a mentoring programme for Indian National Awards 2020, “entrepreneurial activity has picked up in India.By some estimates, more than 50 soonicorn’ startups might join the unicorn club as early as 2022.”

Based on a joint October report by TiE Delhi, a non-profit that promotes entrepreneurship, and Zinnov, a global management and strategy consulting firm, India is expected to have 60,000 to 62,000 startups by 2025, with a total of 100 unicorns.

Rajan Anandan, the president of TiE Delhi-NCR commented on the report saying that “Although the immediate impact of the lockdowns on the Indian startup ecosystem was severe, we were amazed to witness how quickly Indian founders acted to re-imagine their businesses. What has been most impressive is how many startups have reduced cash burn and improved unit economics very rapidly.”

And this steady stream of initial public offering by Indian startups throughout 2020 is just the beginning. This run of unicorns is set to continue in 2021, as forecasted with plans from a handful of internet startups. In any case, India’s startup ecosystem is certainly one to behold.

Vincom Retail launches Vietnam’s largest IPO worth up to US$713 million

Vincom Retail, the shopping mall subsidiary of Vingroup has launched Vietnam’s largest-ever initial public offering (IPO), in a deal worth up to US$713 million.

The largest shopping mall operator in Vietnam, Vincom Retail owns 41 commercial centers throughout the nation. Its popular brands include Vincom Center, Vincom Mega Mall, Vincom Plaza, and Vincom+.

The IPO will take place on the HCM Stock Exchange (HOSE) consisting of 380.22 million shares for institutional investors and another 19 million for retail investors.

Meanwhile, the price range for the shares are set in an indicative range of 37,000 to 40,600 dong apiece, which translates to about US$1.63 to US$1.79.

This would place the offering at up to 16.2 trillion dong (about US$713 million) with all proceeds going to Vincom Retail private equity investors and other shareholders.

According to Bloomberg, Singapore sovereign fund GIC Pte and Franklin Templeton Investments are among cornerstone buyers that have agreed to purchase about $382 million of stock, or 59 percent of the base offering.

At present, Vincom Retail has two foreign shareholders – Warburg Pincus and Credit Suisse AG – which owns 15.7 percent and 5.06 percent of the mall operator respectively.

Even before the IPO, the operations of Vincom Retail has been among the most profitable segments in VinGroup.

According to the company’s first-half financial report, the business line has earned more than 2.88 trillion dong (about US$126.78 million) in revenue for the first six months.

Indonesia startup M Cash Integrasi set to IPO in November

After announcing its plans for a year-end IPO back in May, Indonesia’s ecommerce startup M Cash Integrasi (MCI) is now revealing its IPO price at between Rp 1,300 and Rp 1,405 (about US$0.097 to US$0.11).

The startup is set to list on the Indonesian Stock Exchange (IDX) in November, where it will be offering up to 216 million shares, which is equivalent to 25 percent of its paid-up capital.

If successful, the company will raise up to Rp 300 billion (about US$22 million) in fresh funds which will be used for business expansion and working capital requirements.

M Cash Integrasi will also become the second startup to be listed on the IDX after Kioson, an O2O e-commerce service company who is a rival to Grab’s Kudo.

Currently, the company has also reportedly receive a strong response to its anchor book, driven by the market’s optimism about the technology space in the country.

“So far, we are open to strategic partners who want to enter, and many strategic partners and funds have expressed interest in M Cash,” Suryandy Jahja said.

According to Kresna’s managing director Suryandy Jahja, the company has received strong anchor book interest from investors in Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, United Kingdom, and the United States.

“We want to make sure that the anchors will be good names, so well will be very, very selective,” Jahja added.

Although the anchor book allocation period was closed last Wednesday, other investors can still place their bookings from October 5 until October 19.

Founded in 2010, M Cash Integrasi generate physical cards such as mobile SIM and e-money with automatic registration, in addition to other services including credit top-up, routine bill payment, and e-commerce transactions.

M Cash Integrasi said it is already profitable in business, having reported a revenue of Rp 480 billion (about US$73 million) in 2016.

Kresna Graha investment currently owns 17.6 percent of shares in the company. By the end of the year, the investment firm will help MCI launch 1000 outlets, and double that number in 2018.

Japan’s fintech startup Money Forward gets IPO approval

Japan’s Money Forward, a leading SaaS (Software as a Service) accounting startup announced that its IPO application to the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) board has been approved.

From 29th September onwards, the fintech startup will be listed on the TSE Mothers Market offering 1,617,700 shares for public subscription and to sell up to 382,000 shares in over-allotment options, for a total of 931,000 shares.

SMBC Nikko Securities is appointed as the lead underwriter and the company’s market capitalization is expected to be between 10 billion yen to 20 billion yen.

According to Money Forward, the capital raised from the IPO will be spent on boosting sales offices and its expanding operations.

Founded in May 2012, Money Forward was initially known as Money Book. The company has been providing an automated household account and asset management service platform.

Users can simply register their bank accounts, credit cards, and electric money – to check and easily manage their daily expenses and account balances. The service is also made available for businesses to file taxes and prepare financial statements.

To date, the app has gained enormous popularity with more than 5 million users.

In November 2016, the company lead by CEO Yosuke Tsuji logged sales of about 1.54 billion yen (US$14.1 million) and a net loss of about 880 million yen (US$8.1 million). Currently, the cost of opening sales offices and advertising are weighing on profits.

Aside from Money Forward, it is estimated that about 80 to 90 companies will go public this year. Flea market app operator Mercari is also expected to debut later in 2017.

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