Renren to beat Facebook to IPO market with $500 million offering
Sources say Renren is planning a $500 USD IPO in June.
China’s largest social networking company,Renren, (人人网) , is beating Facebook to the punch with plans to become a publicly traded company in 2011.
Renren.com is preparing an IPO of about $500 million this year, according to three people with knowledge of the plan.
According to sources who do not wish to be identified, the banks handling the IPO are Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank AG and Credit Suisse Group AG. The offering could come as early asJune.
According to Analysys Internation in Beijing, Renren.com China leads the social-networking market with more than 160 million registered users. Since America’s leading social networking company has no access in China, Renren has much to gain, especially with a market with 457 million netizens.
Renren’s announcement comes just after the successful IPOs earlier this week of the Youku video site and theDangdang e-commerce site. ”According to the New York Stock Exchange, Youku’s triple-digit first-day pop was the biggest since 2005, when Baidu Inc rose 354 percent.”
Chinese IPOs in the United States have hit a record high of 35 in 2010. Currently, Chinese issuers make up 23 per cent of U.S. market IPO activity, way up from 1 per cent in 2000.
In the United States, social networking companies are so far all private, but LinkedIn is breaking the ice by announcing a $175 million IPO by the end of 2011.
