Maoyan Entertainment, the China-based online film ticketing platform backed by corporates Enlight Media, Tencent and Meituan Dianping, will raise $250m in its initial public offering, Reuters reported today, citing a term sheet.
The IPO will involve the company floating at the foot of the HK$14.80 and HK$20.40 ($1.89 to $2.60) range it set earlier this month, at a $2.2bn valuation, issuing 132 million shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
Formed in 2012 as a subsidiary of group buying platform Meituan, Maoyan runs an online cinema ticketing platform that had 130 million monthly active users as of September 2018.
The company is the exclusive film ticket vendor for Meituan Dianping, the local services platform formed by Meituan’s subsequent merger with Dianping, and it began distributing films itself in 2016.
The company had initially been seeking between $500m and $1bn in the offering and would have secured $340m had it floated at the top of its range. The IPO was priced at the low end due to lack of investor interest, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Meituan spun Maoyan out in 2016, shortly before film and television producer Enlight paid approximately $730m in cash and shares for a 57.4% stake in Maoyan in 2016 according to the IPO filing.
Maoyan merged with rival Weiying in a September 2017 deal two months before internet group Tencent invested $150m in the combined company at a $3bn valuation.
Weiying had received more than $1bn in funding from Tencent, game publisher iDreamSky, real estate developer Dalian Wanda, trading group Shanghai Gangtai, Beijing Cultural Assets Fund, CMC Holdings, Ocean Capital Group, China Everbright, Wenzi Huasha, GGV Capital, Shandong Luxin Investment Holdings and eCapital.
Enlight owned a 48.8% share of the company pre-IPO, and its other shareholders include a holding vehicle for Weiying that holds 20.6%, as well as Tencent (16.3%) and Meituan Dianping (8.6%). Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and China Renaissance are the joint sponsors for the IPO.
