Renren Inc (人人), China’s largest social-networking service, filed to raise as much as US$584 million in an initial public offering to fund expansion.
Renren plans to sell 53.1 million US depositary receipts for US$9 to US$11 each in an initial public offering, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
The ADRs represent 159.3 million Class A ordinary shares, according to the filing.
The company expects proceeds from the IPO of about US$508 million, and will use them to woo more visitors as it competes with local rivals Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊) and Baidu Inc (百度) in the world’s most populous Internet market. Renren — a name that means “everyone” in Chinese — has similar features to Facebook, which is blocked in China.
No US social-networking sites have gone public, even as their popularity and advertising revenue soar.
That’s created pent-up demand among investors. LinkedIn Corp, which announced plans in January to raise US$175 million in an IPO, may become the first.
Renren has more than 160 million registered users, according to Analysys International in Beijing.
Advertising has more than doubled each year since the site started selling space in 2008, the company has said.
The online advertising market will triple to almost US$13 billion in China by 2014, estimates Susquehanna International Group LLP.
Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank AG and Credit Suisse Group AG will lead the IPO. The ADRs will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker RENN, the prospectus showed.
Renren traces its roots back to 2005, when graduates of Tsinghua University in Beijing founded Xiaonei.com (校內), or “Inside School.” That was the year after Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive officer of Facebook, created his service for fellow Harvard University students.
In 2006, Xiaonei was acquired by closely held Oak Pacific Interactive Corp, which renamed the service Renren in 2009. Softbank Corp, Japan’s fastest-growing mobile-phone carrier, is the biggest shareholder in Beijing-based Oak Pacific.
Facebook does have some Chinese users, who circumvent censors through so-called virtual private networks, according to data compiled by Socialbakers.com, a site dedicated to analyzing Facebook statistics.
The Palo Alto, California-based company is talking with potential partners about how to gain a foothold in China, a person familiar with the matter said this month.
Entering the country would give Facebook access to the world’s largest Internet market, with more than 457 million Web users.
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