[Update] Sina Weibo Downsized NASDAQ IPO at $16.26 Apiece

Sina Weibo, Twitter-like service under Chinese online media company Sina (NASDAQ:SINA), got listed on Nasdaq Capital Market on April 17 under the ticker symbol of “WB” after it filed for the long-rumored IPO in mid-March.

[Update] Sina Weibo downsized its IPO and the company’s shares opened at $16.26 on the first day of its trading, 4.3% lower than its IPO price. Shares of Weibo then surged 19.06% to close $20.24 per share, totaling an market valuation of more than $4 billion.

The company issued 16.80 ADSs at the bottom of its planned range of $17 apiece to raise $285.6 million of capital. The company had planned to sell 20 million ADSs at between $17 and $19 per share.

Sina held a 77.6% stake in Weibo before the IPO. Another big shareholder of the microblog service is Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, which invested $586 million for an 18% stake in Weibo one year earlier.

Alibaba, which is also preparing for an US IPO, now holds a 19.3% stake in Weibo and it has filed to increase its shares to 32% in March, while Sina’s stake is expected to reduce to 56.9%.

According to the prospectus, $250 million of the funds raised in the IPO will be used to pay back the loans from Sina, while rest of the capital will be injected in technology and R&D.