PE-backed AsiaInfo raises $115m in Hong Kong IPO

The company sold approximately 85.7 million shares, excluding the overallotment option, at HK$10.50 apiece, according to a filing. This represented the bottom end of the indicative range. Four cornerstone investors, including Baidu and Lenovo Group, accounted for HK$469.4 million of the offering, taking a 6.27% stake.

Based on the IPO price, AsiaInfo has a market capitalization of around $958.5 million. The earlier privatization valued the company – then known as AsiaInfo-Linkage – at $887 million. That deal took two years to complete because, unlike most take-private transactions involving US-listed Chinese companies, CITIC Capital made an unsolicited offer rather than act in partnership with management.

CITIC Capital retains a 29.97% interest in AsiaInfo. The GP also brought three of its LPs, AlpInvest Partners, Qatar Investment Authority, and Temasek Holdings into the privatization as co-investors. The latter two are listed in the prospectus among the substantial shareholders, each with a 7.28% stake. CITIC Private Equity has 8.74%, while Edward Tian, a co-founder of AsiaInfo and CEO of China Broadband Capital (CBC) has 16.19%. A portion of his interest is direct, and the rest is through CBC.

Established in 1993, AsiaInfo claims to be China’s largest provider of telecom software products and related services with a 25.3% market share by revenue. As of 2017, it supplied customer relationship management (CRM), charging and billing, big data, internet of things, and intelligent network products to more than 200 telecom operator customers. However, the country’s three major carriers, China Mobile, China Unicom and China Netcom, accounted for 93.9% of revenue.

The company has also moved into the non-telecom enterprise software space, working with cable TV, postal and financial services customers.

Revenue came to RMB4.95 billion ($718 million) in 2017, up from RMB4.86 billion the previous year. Over the same period, AsiaInfo moved from a net loss of RMB220.8 million to a profit of RMB317.9 million. Profit from continuing operations increased from RMB74 million to RMB335.2 million.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• IPO
• Technology
• China
• TMT
• CITIC Capital
• Citic Private Equity
• Temasek Holdings
• China Broadband Capital
• QIA