Wise Talent Information Technology, the parent company of China’s largest job recruitment site Liepin.com (猎聘网), went public today on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, our Chinese sister site is reporting. Wise Talent became the first human resource technology company to list in Hong Kong. The company is offering a total of 88 million shares priced at HK$33 each. The price range was initially set at HK$28.5 to HK$35.5 per share.
“Talent is the number one resource and the key to advance Chinese enterprises. We believe each person has a unique value and choosing the right platform can bring that unique value into full play. Individual career successes facilitate enterprise success as a whole,” Rick Dai, Liepin.com’s founder and CEO wrote in a WeChat post.
In January, Wise Talent announced plans to raise as much as $400 million in its IPO, halved from the original $800 million according to IFR Asia. Still, the IPO is said to be this year’s second largest by a unicorn company after Ping An healthcare unit’s $1.1 billion IPO in April.
Wise Talent’s shares hit the market at an opening price of HK$31.6 down 4.2% from its initial offering price, which puts Liepin’s valuation at approximately HK$15.66 billion (or $2 billion).
According to SCMP, 40% of the IPO proceeds will be dedicated to improving R&D capabilities including artificial intelligence, 25% to potential acquisitions and investments, 25 % to sales and marketing related initiatives, and the remaining 10% for working capital purposes.
Launched in 2011, Liepin is China’s largest e-recruitment site by revenue. In 2016, Liepin was valued at $1 billion after completing a $100 million D Series fundraising. The platform claims to have a database of over 248,600 companies, 38.9 million professionals, and 101,800 headhunters as of 2017. Its businesses cover 15 major cities in China, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Tianjin, Hangzhou, and Nanjing.