China's Weibo, Leju make trading debut on US market

Chinese firms, Weibo Corporation and Leju Holdings Limited, made their trading debut on the U.S. market Thursday. Weibo, a Chinese microblogging website, said Thursday that its initial public offering (IPO) of 16.8 million American depositary shares (ADS), each representing one Class A ordinary share of the company, was priced at 17 U.S. dollars per ADS. Weibo's shares began trading on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the ticker symbol "WB." It opened at 16.27 dollars a share, below its IPO price, but staged a rally later. Goldman Sachs (Asia) and Credit Suisse Securities (USA) acted as joint book runners for the offering. Weibo, a leading social media platform for people to create, distribute and discover Chinese-language content, has had a profound social impact in China. In March, the company had 143.9 million monthly active users and 66.6 million average daily active users, according to a statement released Thursday on the company's trading debut. Leju, a leading online-to-offline (O2O) real estate services provider in China, said Thursday that its initial public offering of 10 million ADSs, each representing one ordinary share of the company, was priced at 10.00 dollars per ADS. Leju made its trading debut on the New York Stock Exchange Thursday under the ticker symbol "LEJU." It opened at 10.80 dollars a share and extended gains later in the session. Credit Suisse Securities (USA), J.P. Morgan Securities, China Renaissance Securities (Hong Kong), Macquarie Capital (USA) and China Merchants Securities (HK) acted as joint book runners for the offering. Leju's online platform includes websites covering more than 250 cities as well as mobile applications. The firm also operates the real estate and home furnishing websites of leading internet companies such as SINA Corporation and Baidu Inc., and maintains a strategic partnership with Tencent Holdings Limited.