SOHO3Q mulls a public listing

SOHO3Q, a shared office service brand that belongs to commercial property developer SOHO China, plans to go public next year. It aims to be the country's largest office provider in the future, SOHO's chairman Pan Shiyi said on Wednesday.

Pan, however, didn't disclose more details of the listing, including the exchange location. He believes there is still large growth potential for co-working space providers in the country, and the listing can help to fuel the development of SOHO3Q.

"We want to build SOHO3Q into a comprehensive office platform, providing relevant services for enterprises in different fields," said Pan Shiyi, chairman of Hong Kong-listed SOHO China. "As for the expansion, we will mainly rely on organic growth instead of mergers and acquisitions. For instance, we prefer to collaborate with partners like China Merchant Bank and JD that have complementary advantages with us."

SOHO3Q's target customer, according to Pan, has shifted from mainly start-ups at the very beginning to medium and large enterprises such as CMB and JD.

Having opened 25 service centers in China, SOHO3Q will open another five in China's major cities. Besides Beijing and Shanghai, where SOHO3Q already has a big presence, the company will also enter Chongqing, Chengdu and Shenzhen, boosting its overall workstations in the country to 30,000. And its customers come from all walks of industries, including companies like Red, Tezign and Sina.

"We expect workstations to exceed 50,000 by the end of the year," Pan said. "But the capability to make profit matters more than the scale. So far, 80 percent of SOHO3Q's offices have been profitable."

Fan Hang contributed to this story.