Tencent Music Entertainment Group popped in its debut on the public markets Wednesday, gaining as much as 13 percent after opening at $14.10 per share.
The music arm of Chinese tech giant Tencent said Tuesday it raised close to $1.1 billion after pricing its shares at $13 a piece, at the bottom of its stated range of $13 to $15. That initial sale gives the company an implied valuation of $21.3 billion.
The highly anticipated initial public offering is one of the largest U.S. IPOs by a Chinese company since Alibaba raised over $20 billion in 2014, and comes amid heightened tensions between the Chinese and U.S. governments.
Tencent Music initially planned to launch the deal in October, but postponed because of a sell-off in global markets roiled by a U.S.-China trade war and fears of slowing global growth.
Tencent Music owns the four largest music apps in China — streaming apps QQ Music, Kugou Music and Kuwo Music, and karaoke app WeSing. The company counted more than 800 million unique monthly active users during the second quarter of 2018, according to its initial prospectus filing.
The company has posted an annual profit for the last two years, according to the filing.
Parent company Tencent owns 58 percent of the music division. Spotify, which went public on U.S. exchanges earlier this year, owns 9 percent of shares.
The stock trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker “TME.” Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley are the lead underwriters of Tencent Music’s offering.
Terry Paul
Paul Terry is a publisher and an author in wowplus.net and other news channel
