By Scott Murdoch
(Reuters) -Indonesian courier services startup J&T Global Express said on Monday it planned to raise up to HK$3.92 billion ($500.97 million) in Hong Kong’s second-largest initial public offering (IPO) in 2023.
The company, which mainly operates in southeast Asia and China, will issue 326.5 million shares priced at HK$12.00 each, according to the company’s regulatory filings.
J&T will have a market capitalisation at HK$105.75 billion ($13.51 billion), according to it prospectus, which is in line with the valuation achieved during its most recent private fundraising round in May.
The IPO valuation is well below the $20 billion that J&T was valued at in a 2021 funding round.
J&T had originally hoped to raise $1 billion in the IPO but downgraded the targeted amount following talks investors and pessimistic market sentiment, Reuters reported on Friday.
Launched in Indonesia in 2015 by two former executives at Chinese electronics firm OPPO, J&T quickly became the largest e-commerce delivery service in Southeast Asia.
The company bought Alibaba-backed Best Inc’s express delivery business in China in 2021 in a deal valued at about $1.1 billion and that launched an aggressive China expansion.
The startup, now headquartered in Shanghai, is one of the top five courier services in China. It also operates in Latin America and the Middle East since 2021.
J&T’s IPO is the second largest share sale in Hong Kong in 2023, after Chinese spirits maker ZJLD Group raised $675.2 million in April.
($1 = 7.8248 Hong Kong dollars)
(Reporting by Scott Murdoch in Sydney; additional reporting by Nausheen Thusoo in Bengaluru; Editing by Deepa Babington and Lisa Shumaker)