Tencent-backed Real Estate Service Platform Operator Ke Holdings Targets $1B US Listing on July 24
China’s leading housing rental transaction service platform operator Ke Holdings has filed a preliminary prospectus for a U.S. initial public offering on July 24, aiming to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol “BEKE”.
The company seeks to raise up to $1B for the offering without listing the price range per ADSs in its prospectus.
The net proceeds expected from this offering will be used for research and development to continue to invest in the platform functions and infrastructure technologies, expansion of its new home transaction services, and diversification of its service offerings and expansion of business operations into new geographical areas.
Ke said in the filing that its revenues in 2017, 2018, and 2019 were 25.5 billion yuan, 28.646 billion yuan, and 46 billion yuan, respectively. The revenue for the first quarter of 2020 was 7.12 billion yuan. The company is expected to have a net profit of over 2.7 billion in the second quarter of 2020, an increase of 589.3% from the 400 million in the same period last year, according to the prospectus.
In 2019, Ke reached 2.1 trillion total gross transaction value with its facilitation of 2.2 million transactions, according to the prospectus. On November 1, 2019, Ke completed a $2.4 billion D+ round of financing. Backers include SoftBank Group, Hillhouse Capital, and Tencent Investment.
The Tianjin-based firm, Ke, is an operator of housing services platform, Beike and real estate brokerage Lianjia. The platform collects a large amount of housing information on the platform, covering new housing, second-hand housing and rental housing information in China’s various provinces and cities, according to China’s enterprise information query site Qcc. The platform is known to provide VR viewing services to allow users to immersively “see” the structure of the house.
If the IPO proceeds, Ke will be the first Chinese real estate service platform operator to go public.
