AAA Ucommune works its way toward public markets

Ucommune works its way toward public markets

Ucommune, a China-based co-working space operator whose shareholders include real estate developers Dahong Group, Junfa Group, Prosperity Holdings and Yintai Land, filed for a $100m initial public offering on Wednesday.

Founded in 2015 as URWork, Ucommune maintains hundreds of co-working spaces spanning 44 cities across China, Singapore, the US and UK. It also provides fully customised spaces for large clients. It made an $80.1m net loss in the first nine months of 2019 from $122m in revenue.

Proceeds from the IPO would be put into opening additional spaces, expanding Ucommune’s services and driving technology development. It has raised approximately $745m in funding, most recently collecting $29.8m from a real estate subsidiary of conglomerate Beijing Xingpai in April 2019.

In August 2018, Prosperity Holdings co-led a $43.5m round for Ucommune, reportedly with RK Properties, a property development arm of infrastructure investment firm Road King Infrastructure.

Prosperity Holdings had already taken part in a $178m pre-series C round in August 2017, investing alongside Beijing Land Capital, conglomerate Aikang Group and media company Star Group as well as Beijing Xingpai, after the latter had provided $58m that May.

Junfa and Dahong contributed to a $58.4m round for the company in January 2017 that also attracted Tianhong Asset Management, a fund management affiliate of financial services provider Ant Financial, as well as Shanghai Chuanghehui Fund and Tianming Shuangchuang Technology.

Yintai Land, Zhongrong International Trust, Gopher Asset Management, CIC Hanfor, Sequoia Capital and ZhenFund supplied $46m in equity financing for Ucommune in 2015. Its backers also include All-Stars Investment, CEC Capital, Qianhai Wutong Mergers and Acquisitions Funds, CKing Home-Key Investment Group and Context Lab.

Beijing Xingpai is the only corporate to own a stake greater than 5% ahead of the proposed offering, holding 5.3% through a vehicle called Starry Shore. An investment vehicle for founder Daqing Mao and his wife Angela Bai is the largest shareholder, owning 35.3%, while private investor Bin Zhao holds an 8.6% share.

Haitong International and China Renaissance have been hired as joint book-running managers for the proposed offering, which is set to take place on the New York Stock Exchange. The underwriters also include Core Securities, Prime Number Capital and CRIC Securities.

Photo courtesy of Ucommune.

By Thierry Heles

Thierry Heles is editor-at-large of Global University Venturing and Global Corporate Venturing, and host of the Beyond the Breakthrough podcast.

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