A building in Hangzhou in China’s eastern Zhejiang province features a logo of the riding giant Didi Chuxing.
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Chinese giant Didi Chuxing was reportedly raising $ 1.5 billion in debt financing ahead of a US blockbuster hit, Bloomberg reported Friday, citing sources familiar with the case.
According to a report from Reuters, also on Friday, the Softbank-backed company plans to apply in confidence for a July listing led by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley later this month.
According to data from PitchBook, Didi was last valued at $ 62 billion after a fundraising round in August. Both Bloomberg and Reuters report that the company may be looking forward to a valuation of $ 100 billion by the time of its Wall Street debut.
A US-based company spokesman reached out by CNBC declined to comment.
A Didi IPO could be one of the largest tech IPOs this year and one of the largest Chinese IPOs in the US since Alibaba was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2014. attracted by regulators a few days before trading in Shanghai and Hong Kong was due to start in November. The suspension of the IPO came shortly after Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, who owns about a third of Ant Group, made some comments that turned out to be critical of China’s financial regulator. Ant Group was also an early investor in Didi.
Last May, Didi president Jean Liu told CNBC that the company’s core businesses are profitable and that it has picked up again after the coronavirus outbreak hit China, its home market. Liu did not provide specific numbers or say what measure of profitability she was referring to.
Didi has been named on the CNBC Disruptor 50 list for the past three consecutive years, most recently at number 30 on last year’s list. The company is headquartered in Beijing and operates in China and eight overseas markets, including Australia and Japan.