A logo of the giant Didi Chuxing, displayed in a building in Hangzhou, in the eastern province of Zhejiang of China.
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Chinese giant Didi Chuxing is said to be raising $ 1.5 billion in debt financing ahead of a U.S. IPO, Bloomberg reported Friday, citing sources familiar with the matter.
According to a Reuters report, also on Friday, the company backed by Softbank plans to run confidentially later this month for a July list led by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
Didi was recently valued at $ 62 billion after a round of fundraising in August, according to PitchBook data. Both Bloomberg and Reuters report that the company could be looking for a $ 100 billion valuation at the time of its Wall Street debut.
A spokesman for the U.S.-based company, which CNBC reached out to, declined to comment.
A Didi IPO could be one of the largest technology IPOs this year and one of the largest Chinese IPOs since Alibaba was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2014. The IPO Ant Group, which would have been the largest of the story, it was withdrawn by regulators a few days before it began trading in Shanghai and Hong Kong in November. The suspension of the IPO came shortly after Alibaba founder Jack Ma, who owns about a third of the Ant group, made some comments that seemed critical of China’s financial regulator. Ant Group was also a first investor in Didi.
Last May, Didi President Jean Liu told CNBC that the company’s core business is profitable and that it has recovered again after the coronavirus outbreak hit China, its domestic market. Liu did not give specific figures or say what measure of profitability he was referring to.
Didi has been named on the CNBC Disruptor 50 list for the past three consecutive years, and most recently ranks number 30 on last year’s list. Headquartered in Beijing, the company operates in China and eight foreign markets, including Australia and Japan.