21Vianet Group, a largest carrier-neutral Internet data center services provider in China, raised $195 million by offering 13 million ADSs at $15, above an upwardly revised range of $12 to $13. The company had originally filed to sell 11.5 million ADSs at a price of $10-$12 on April 6. The $195 million in gross IPO proceeds was $68 million (or 54%) greater than its originally planned deal size. At $15, the company commands a market value just under $900 million, or more than 10x its 2010 sales. 21Vianet Group will begin trading on Thursday the NASDAQ under the symbol VNET. Morgan Stanley, Barclays Capital, and J.P. Morgan acted as lead managers on the deal.
21Vianet is one of a growing list of Chinese Internet IPOs to see strong interest from US investors, and follows on the heels of the impressive debut of Qihoo 360 Technology (QIHU) on March 30. Qihoo 360's first day return of 134% was the third best performance for a US-listed IPO over the last 10 years. Two additional Chinese Internet companies are scheduled to complete IPOs over the next two weeks: mobile Internet security provider NetQin (NQ) and the highly-anticipated offering from China's leading social network Renren (RENN). If successful, we suspect more Chinese IPOs could be added to the IPO calendar in the coming weeks.
Other recent high-flying Chinese Internet IPOs include leading online bookseller E-Commerce China Dangdang (DANG) and China's #1 online video portal Youku.com (YOKU), dubbed the Chinese Amazon.com and Youtube.com, respectively. Both companies went public in December 2010. Dangdang is currently trading 50% above its offer price, while Youku.com is now up an incredible 402%.
Earlier in the week, we profiled 21Vianet Group as our Featured IPO.
