Cheetah Mobile, the spinoff of Chinese software developer Kingsoft that filed for IPO this April, today announced it planned to raise approximately $168 million funding by offering 12,000,000 American depositary shares (ADS) at $14.00 apiece, with each ADS representing ten Class A ordinary shares of the company.
Calculated at this initial offering price, the market valuation of Cheetah Mobile’s 138 million ADS shares is expected to reach $1.932 billion after the IPO. Kingsoft’s share in the company will be diluted from 54.1% to 48.6%.
[Update] The ADSs started 8.9% higher at $15.24 apiece on New York Stock Exchange on May 8. The company’s share edged up 0.71% to close at $14.01 per share on the same day.
The market valuation of Cheetah Mobile tripled in less one year, according to data from the company. Liu Xinhua, CMO of the firm, told TechNode that over 60% of the 180 investors they’ve visited during the three-month road show period invested in the company, including several sovereign wealth funds and long-term funds from Asia, Europe, the U.S. and Canada, etc.
Baidu, Tencent, Xiaomi, Kingsoft acquired a combined $70 million worth of shares in this IPO, helping the company to fight against a common enemy Qihoo.
Cheetah Mobile witnessed exponential growth in the past year with the number of active mobile users surged from 40 million to 220 million, of which 62% are overseas users. Clean Master, an Android storage management app, recorded 240 million installs, according to Fu Sheng, CEO of the company.
The U.S. and European Union constitute the largest overseas market of Cheetah Mobile. In the future, the company will continue to focus on the markets in developed countries.
Fu Sheng noted that they will stick to its current business model of channeling users from their free software to a web browser and monetize through search marketing, advertising, and online gaming.
image credit: Cheetah Mobile
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