Largest Chinese Internet IPO yet

By MICHAEL BARRIS in New York ( China Daily USA ) Updated: 2014-01-31 10:29:18

A pedestrian walks past an advertisement for online shopping site JD.com (Jingdong.com) in Shanghai, China, May 25, 2013. [Photo/dfic.cn]

JD.com, China's second-biggest electronic commerce company, filed to raise $1.5 billion in a US initial public offering that would be the largest by a Chinese Internet company, reflecting China's booming online retail market.

"Investors are very hungry for the piece of consumer e-commerce space in China," Francis Gaskins, a partner at IPO research company IPODesktop.com, was quoted by Reuters. US investors regained their appetite for Chinese stocks late in 2013 after accounting scandals froze demand. The number of US-listed Chinese stocks peaked at 40 in 2010.

Baidu Inc, China's largest search-engine company, raised $122 million in a 2005 New York IPO.

Formerly known as 360buy Jingdong Inc and backed by Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, JD.com is said to be trying to hold its IPO in the US ahead of rival and market leader Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Alibaba has not yet announced plans for a US IPO. If it were to go public this year as expected, the offering would be the biggest since Facebook Inc's 2012 deal.

China is on a course to overtake the US as the world's biggest online retail market this year with predicted sales of nearly $180 billion, as increasingly wealthy middle-class shoppers buy more items online and improvements to the nation's distribution network kick in.

JD.com, founded in 1998 as Jingdong Century Trading Co, is reaping the benefits of the boom. It said in December it would top its 2013 sales target of 100 billion yuan ($16.5 billion).

The Beijing-based company and other web-based retailers in China, including US global retailing giants Wal-Mart and Amazon Inc, dwell in Alibaba's shadow, which has captured nearly 80 percent of the Chinese market. Bankers predict an Alibaba IPO could raise up to $15 billion and value the company at more than $100 billion.

JD.com tries to differentiate itself from Alibaba by operating its own network of couriers and warehouses, a factor it says ensures timely and efficient delivery. Alibaba depends on merchants and external courier firms for their logistics.

With 35.8 million active customer accounts, JD.com posted a profit for the first nine months of 2013 after a string of losses, according to the IPO filing. It had 35.8 million active customer accounts and processed 211.7 million orders in the first nine months of 2013. Revenue surged 70 percent to $8 billion in the period.

Founder and CEO Richard Liu owns a 46 percent interest in JD.com, according to the filing. Alwaleed's Kingdom Holding Co owns about 5 percent while Tiger Global Management LLC has 22 percent.