Beijing (PingWest)- Kuaishou Technology, Tencent-backed short video app and Douyin’s biggest rival, is issuing 365 million shares to global investors in a price range between HKD105 and HKD115 a share, which could value the company between USD55.6 billion and USD60.9 billion, exceeding the anticipation of USD50 billion, according to Kuaishou’s filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Tuesday.

If Kuaishou exercises the additional greenshoe option, the offering would boost the company’s valuation to USD61.7 billion, making it more valuable than Nasdaq-listed Bilibili and Baidu backed online streaming site iQIYI.

In total 365 million shares issued by Kuaishou, international investor would account for 97.5 percent of the offering, the remaining 2.5 percent of total shares are being issued to retail investors in Hong Kong.  

Investor can subscribe the shares between January 26 and January 29, and the final offer price and placing results will be announced on 4 February.

The Kuaishou IPO has 10 cornerstone investors, including the world’s biggest asset manager BlackRock and Singapore’s sovereign wealth funds Temasek Holdings, UAE’s largest sovereign wealth fund Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), CPP Investments, Morgan Stanly’s MSAL and Sunny Festive.

The cornerstone investors have agreed to buy shares that worth USD2.45 billion in totals.

Kuaishou had 262.4 million daily average users in the first nine months of 2020, representing a year-over-year increase of 59 percent, according to the company’s IPO prospectus. Its revenue rose 49 per cent to 40.7 billion yuan (USD6.3 billion) in the first nine months of 2020.

However, Kuaishou hasn’t yet achieve profitability, it booked a net loss of CNY7.2 billion in the first nine month of 2020, averaging 800 million yuan of losses a month. 

The company believe that it is necessary to continue to invest significant resources, including financial resources, in research and development to keep pace with technological advances in order to make its platform competitive.

The net proceeds of the offering will be used to fund its research and development, potential acquisitions and investments as well as general corporate purposes.