Autohome on track for NYSE listing by mid-month

Automotive information portal Autohome.com.cn plans to make its debut on the New York Stock Exchange on Dec 11, which will make it the fifth Chinese tech firm to be listed in the United States in 50 days.

According to US website IPO-Scoop.com, the Beijing-based company hopes to raise $102 million by offering 7.82 million shares priced between $12 and $14 apiece.

Deutsche Bank Securities and Goldman Sachs (Asia) LLC are the joint bookrunners on the deal.

Describing itself as the largest online auto information platform in the country, Autohome.com said earlier in its IPO prospectus report that it achieved 831 million yuan ($172 million) in sales revenue for the 12 months ended Sept 30, with net profit of 334 million yuan.

Autohome.com.cn tests its auto chair for children at the 2013 Guangzhou Auto Fair last month. The company generated 831 million yuan ($172 million) in sales for the year ended Sept 30, with net profit of 334 million yuan.[Photo/China Daily]

Founded in 2005, the company saw strong revenue growth in the past three years, from 253 million yuan in 2010 to 433 million yuan in 2011 and 733 million yuan in 2012.

With more than 80 million registered users, the company had nearly half of the market share in its sector as of September, with 46 percent of the total time spent by users on automotive websites, four times that of the following player. Autohome.com receives some 5 to 7 million visits a day.

The portal's largest shareholder - Telstra Corp Ltd, an Australian telecommunications and media group - first invested $7.6 million to acquire a 55 percent stake of the company in 2008, and it then spent $3.7 million in 2012 to raise its stake to 71.5 percent.

Based on Autohome.com's current estimated value of about $1.4 billion, Telstra's investment in the Chinese portal increased more than 500 percent in five years, analysts said.

After the IPO pipeline on the mainland ground to a halt in October 2012, Chinese companies, especially those in the tech sector, started to consider listings in the US after several successful cases.

Online shopping website vip-shop.com and social network service YY Inc were the only two Chinese companies that were listed in the US in 2012, compared with 41 companies in 2010 and 12 in 2011. However, their IPO returns reached 177 percent and 32 percent, respectively.

Qunar, a travel website owned by Chinese search engine Baidu Inc, nearly doubled its initial share value on its opening day on Nov 1 and raised $167 million on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

Beijing-based 58.com, an online marketplace active in about 380 Chinese cities, saw its shares surge more than 45 percent on its debut to $24.12 per share on Oct 31. The company raised $187 million from its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange.