HONG KONG/NEW YORK: Wanda Sports Group, a sport events owner whose interests include the distribution of media rights in Asia for the Fifa World Cup, said on Friday it priced a smaller-than-expected US initial public offering (IPO) below its targeted range to raise $190.4 million.
The Beijing-based company, a unit of Chinese conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group, sold about 23.8 million American depositary shares (ADS) at $8 each, compared with a previously stated target of selling 28 million ADS between $9 to $11.
The weak pricing values the owner of Infront Sports & Media AG, a Swiss sports marketing company, and World Triathlon Corp, the organiser and promoter of the Ironman race, at around $1 billion.
It indicates tepid US investor demand for Chinese stocks after China’s largest live-streaming platform DouYu International Holdings priced its $775 million Nasdaq IPO at the bottom of a price range last week.
On Wednesday, Wanda Sports had already cut the size of its IPO to up to $308 million from a previous size of up to $500 million.
Wanda Sports, which owns sports properties and generates revenue from events operation, sponsorship and media production, in 2018 reported a profit of 54 million euros ($60 million), a 31 per cent drop from a year earlier. The company recorded a loss of 8.6 million euros in the first three months of 2019.
The IPO follows a string of assets sales by parent Dalian Wanda, which had built a sprawling business empire ranging from real estate to sport to cinemas. In 2015, the conglomerate acquired Infront Sports & Media and World Triathlon for $1.2 billion and $650 million, respectively. — Reuters
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