⁍ Li Auto is selling 95 million American depositary shares (ADDS) at an indicative range of $8 to $10 per share.
⁍ Private equity firm Hillhouse Capital plans to invest $300 million in the float.
⁍ The IPO is the latest gauge of U.S. investor demand for Chinese companies going public.
– A Chinese automaker plans to go public in the US later this month in one of the biggest initial public offerings by a Chinese company this year, reports Reuters. Li Auto is planning to sell 95 million American depositary shares at an indicative range of $8 to $10 per share, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The company, which makes electric vehicles, is backed by food delivery giant Meituan Dianping. It plans to use most of the proceeds for capital expenditures and research and development of new products. The IPO is the latest gauge of US investor demand for Chinese companies going public. For Li Auto and some others, prestige and listed comparables continue to propel them toward a US listing in spite of escalating Sino-US geopolitical tension and negative sentiment toward Chinese firms following fallout from Luckin Coffee. Li Auto’s rival, Xpeng, plans to go public in New York later this year, according to sources with knowledge of the matter. At $950 million, Li Auto’s IPO would surpass the $510 float by cloud service provider Kingsoft Cloud, which has been the biggest US listing by a Chinese firm this year. Alongside the IPO, Li Auto will also raise $380 million from a concurrent private placement of shares to investors including Meituan Dianping via its British Virgin Islands-incorporated unit, and TikTok owner ByteDance via a Hong Kong unit. It is building Li ONE extended-range electric sport-utility vehicles in China.
Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-li-auto-ipo/chinese-electric-vehicle-maker-li-auto-aims-to-raise-up-to-950-million-in-growth-push-idUSKCN24Q0D8