Meituan takes orders for US$4.4bil IPO

Higher loss: Meituan riders going on their rounds in Shanghai. In the four months ended April, the firm’s revenue surged 95 to 15.8 billion yuan while its loss almost tripled to 22.8 billion yuan. — Reuters

HONG KONG: Meituan Dianping started taking orders for a Hong Kong initial public offering that could raise as much as US$4.4bil as it warned there was no guarantee it would ever become profitable.

The restaurant review and delivery giant backed by Tencent Holdings Ltd is offering 480.27 million new Class B shares at HK$60 to HK$72 apiece, according to terms for the deal obtained by Bloomberg yesterday. Five cornerstone investors including Tencent have agreed to buy a combined US$1.5bil of stock in the offering, the terms show.