China-headquartered trucking services platform developer Full Truck Alliance secured almost $1.57bn today in an initial public offering representing an exit for corporates SoftBank, Alphabet, Baidu and Tencent.
The offering consisted of 82.5 million American Depositary Shares (ADSs), each representing 20 ordinary shares, issued on the New York Stock Exchange priced at the top of its $17 to $19 range.
Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board and an affiliate of Mubadala Investment Company are each buying $100m of shares through a private placement. The company’s share price stands at $20.17 at time of publication, giving it a market capitalisation of approximately $21.9bn.
Full Truck Alliance operates a digital freight platform that gives shippers access to a network of some 2.8 million trucks, utilising artificial intelligence to increase efficiency. It made a $532m net loss in 2020 from just over $395m in revenue.
The company has earmarked 40% of the IPO proceeds for expanding its services and a further 40% for strengthening infrastructure development and technology.
Freight booking services Huochebang and Yunmanman formed Full Truck Alliance – also known as Manbang Group – through a 2017 merger which followed a combined $535m of funding from investors including internet groups Tencent and Baidu (through Baidu Capital).
Sequoia Capital China, Lightspeed Venture Partners, YF Capital, Tiger Management, All-Stars Investment, Genesis Capital, DCM Ventures, International Finance Corporation and Zhongding Capital were also among the companies’ pre-merger backers.
Tencent and Sequoia China had joined telecommunications and internet group SoftBank’s Vision Fund, internet and technology conglomerate Alphabet’s CapitalG unit, GSR Ventures, China Reform Fund and Ward Ferry in a $1.9bn round in 2018 valuing the company at $6.5bn.
SoftBank Vision Fund, Sequoia China, investment and financial services group Fidelity and Permira’s Growth Opportunities Fund co-led a $1.7bn round in November 2020 valuing Full Truck Alliance at almost $12bn, investing with Tencent, Hillhouse Capital, GGV Capital, Lightspeed China Partners and YF Capital.
Vision Fund holds a 20.3% stake in the company post-IPO while Full Load Logistics, a vehicle controlled by chairman and CEO Peter Hui Zhang, has 9.2%, Sequoia China 6.6% and a Zhang-controlled vehicle dubbed Master Quality Group 6%.
Morgan Stanley, China International Capital Corporation Hong Kong Securities and Goldman Sachs (Asia) are lead joint bookrunners for the offering. UBS Securities, Huatai Securities (USA), Citigroup Global Markets, Nomura Securities International, China Renaissance Securities (Hong Kong) and CLSA are also underwriters.
The underwriters have the option over the next 30 days to purchase nearly 12.4 million additional shares, potentially increasing the size of the offering to approximately $1.8bn.
