In response to the swirling rumor about “360buy resumed IPO process”, the Beijing-based B2C giant issued a statement last night to rebut the claim. 360buy reiterated in the statement that it has no intention to go public anytime soon, and it never shared any IPO-related information or financial data with investment banks.
A recent report said that the company which raised US$ 1.5 billion in its Series C round of financing resumed the iPO preparations in this month and has secretly contacted a number of investment banks. And according to the company’s financial figures, it saw RMB 21 billion in total sales and RMB 1.2 billion in net loss in last year with a gross profit margin of nearly 5%.
The ecommerce giant was rumored to sell shares at NASDAQ last September though things didn’t pan out well due to market unrest among other reasons like turmoil global economy.
Li Guoqing, CEO of NYSE-listed Dangdang, one of 360buy’s arch rival took a shoot at the company claiming “the company(360buy) wouldn’t even survive this August or October” and “(360buy) doing an ecommerce business in hedge fund’s manner was “bullshit” and couldn’t survive long. Eventually 360buy will need to raise a new round of financing or trying to sell shares at NASDAQ after burning out all the raised money.”
It’s been a tough time for Chinese ecommerce services which are bleeding money and waiting for the market to pick up again.