MW Didi IPO: Chinese ride-hailing giant's stock climbs 20% in debut
By Levi Sumagaysay
Didi among ten companies debuting on crowded IPO day ahead of July Fourth holiday
Didi Global Inc.'s shares rose more than 20% in their U.S. public market debut Wednesday as the Chinese ride-hailing giant rode a wave of initial public offerings ahead of the July Fourth holiday.
Didi opened at $16.65 after declaring an offering price of $14 a share. It raised $4.4 billion by selling 316.8 million shares, more than the 288 million American depositary shares it had planned to offer. The IPO came on a day when at least ten companies had their trading debuts, including legal-tech provider LegalZoom.com Inc .
The company's market cap reached about $77 billion immediately after trading opened, putting it behind U.S. counterpart Uber Technologies Inc. $(UBER)$, which has a market value of about $95 billion. Didi, which was founded in China in 2012, bought Uber's Chinese business in 2016, and has since grown to serve 377 million annual active users in China alone while operating in 15 other countries. Besides ride-hailing, the company has delivery and freight businesses and more.
For more: 5 things to know about Didi as it goes public
Didi has no ride-hailing business in the United States but has a research and development office in Silicon Valley that's mostly focused on autonomous vehicles.
-Levi Sumagaysay; 415-439-6400; AskNewswires@dowjones.com
$(END)$ Dow Jones Newswires
June 30, 2021 13:16 ET (17:16 GMT)
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