SouFun Raises $125 Million Selling Shares at Top of IPO Range
By Lee Spears
Sept. 16 (Bloomberg) -- SouFun Holdings Ltd., the operator of China’s biggest real-estate website, raised $125 million selling shares at the top of its forecast price range in this month’s first U.S. initial public offering.
The company that controls almost half of China’s online real-estate advertising market sold 2.93 million American depositary receipts at $42.50 each today, a Securities and Exchange Commission filing and Bloomberg data showed. At the midpoint price, SouFun was valued at 14.3 times earnings, 14 percent less than the average of six Internet portals and property information providers, data compiled by Independent International Investment Research Plc and Bloomberg show.
The offering came after the number of Internet users in China, the world’s fastest growing major economy, surpassed the entire U.S. population. The IPO was the first of at least 10 scheduled in the U.S. this month after the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rebounded 10 percent from its 2010 low in July.
“There’s an appetite for market leaders who sell at a discount,” Michael Yoshikami, who oversees about $1 billion at YCMNet Advisors in Walnut Creek, California, said before the pricing. “The better the equity markets do, the better demand will be for IPOs. They’re putting it out there in the midst of a pretty reasonable market bounce.”
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