Chinese gaming live-streaming and video platform Bilibili plans a secondary listing in Hong Kong in 2021. The company is already listed on the Nasdaq where it raised $483M USD in its initial public offering in March 2018. The IPO was priced at $11.50 per share. At market close on Oct. 8, the share price was $47.67, up more than 414% from its IPO pricing. Bilibili hired UBS, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley.
Bilibili, which currently has a market capitalization of just over $16B, could raise between $800M to $1.5B with its secondary listing, according to sources familiar with the deal. Bilibili is one of several mainland China headquartered companies listed in the U.S. planning for a secondary listing in Hong Kong as political tensions between the U.S. and China increase.
U.S. regulators and legislators could force Chinese companies, which are publicly traded in the country, to delist by the start of 2022 unless they agree to be audited by American auditors. Several Chinese companies already declined to do so as Chinese laws ban them from granting access to their books to foreign auditors as they could contain state secrets.
Next year is the earliest Bilibili can go public in Hong Kong because of regulations that require a company to have a track record of at least two financial years of good regulatory compliance on another qualifying exchange to meet listing rules.
Investors in Bilibili include Tencent Holdings, Alibaba Group Holding, and Sony. The company recently acquired exclusive streaming rights to the ongoing League of Legends World Championship from Tencent subsidiary Riot Games.
