BEIJING (dpa-AFX) - Walnut Street Group Holding, a Chinese e-commerce company, filed Form F-1 with the SEC to raise up to $1.0 billion in an initial public offering. No pricing terms were disclosed.
The Shanghai-based company operates the Pinduoduo mobile platform, where users to participate in group buying deals, mostly through Tencent's communication app WeChat.
Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs (Asia) and CICC are the joint bookrunners on the deal.
The Shanghai, China-based company was founded in 2015 by former Google software engineer Colin Huang.
In the filing, the company said its founder Colin Huang owns 50.7% stake of the firm. Other major investors include Tencent Holdings Ltd., Gaorong Capital and Sequoia Capital China, controlling 18.5%, 10.1% and 7.4% stake respectively.
In 2017, its gross merchandise value (GMV) was RMB141.2 billion (US$21 billion) and 4.3 billion orders were placed on its platform.
The company intends to use offering net proceeds to expand business operations, for research and development, and for general corporate purposes and working capital, including potential strategic investments and acquisitions.
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