Chinese car maintenance service startup Tuhu Car will start bookbuilding on Thursday for a Hong Kong initial public offering that could raise up to $150 million, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said.
The deal size is to be between $100 million and $150 million, the sources said, ahead of a final decision being made by the company and its advisers.
The sources did not want to be identified as the information was not yet made public.
Tuhu did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
Tuhu, which is backed by Tencent, Carlyle Group and Sequoia China, has been considering a listing for more than two years and initially planned a U.S. share sale.
The firm had considered a U.S. IPO of up to $400 million as early as February 2021, Reuters reported at the time. That was before the rush of Chinese companies wanting to list in New York was frozen following ride-hailing giant Didi Global going ahead with its $4.4 billion IPO against the Chinese regulator’s will.
Hong Kong’s IPO market remains in the doldrums with $2.5 billion raised so far in 2023, according to Dealogic, putting it on track to record one of its poorest performances in years. There was $8.5 billion raised in 2022, the data showed, compared with $28 billion the year before.
Tuhu was founded 12 years ago in Shanghai and provides car repair and maintenance services via an online-to-offline business model.
Its app links customers with more than 4,700 car repair centres and 19,000 partner centres across China, according to its preliminary filings to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
Tuhu said it had 17.1 million transacting users in the year ended March 2023, which was up 9.9% on the same time last year, the filings said.
Reuters