Tencent-owned Sogou plans to raise up to $585mn in New York IPO
Chinese search engine Sogou is issuing an initial public offering (IPO) on the US stock market, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The offering it to be led by JP Morgan Chase & Co, Credit Suisse Group, Goldman Sachs and China International Capital Corp.
The search engine, a subsidiary of Sohu Inc, Beijing-based Chinese internet company, plans to raise up to $585mn.
Shares will be on sale at between $11-13 apiece and 45mn are on offer.
See also:
Tencent Holddings invests $372mn in CICC
Business Review Asia - November issue now live!
The company is already backed by internet giant Tencent, which owns 43.7%, while Sohu owns 37.8%.
Sogou is currently the default search engine in Tencent Mobile’s QQ browser and is looking to develop other collaboration with its majority shareholder.
It will use the proceeds from the IPO for research and development, sales and marketing and “general corporate purposes.”
Sogou was launched in August 2004 and for the second quarter of this year reported an income of $23,5mn, as well as revenue amounting to to $210.9mn.
Since Alibaba issued a US IPO in 2014 which reached $25bn, there have been a number of Asian companies issuing US IPO’s, including Singapore Unicorn Sea, which issued a New York stock exchange IPO in September 2017 and announced it expected to raise $1bn.
