(Bloomberg) — South Korean e-commerce giant Coupang Inc. delivered the biggest U.S. initial public offering since Uber Technologies Inc.’s and then rose — briefly — to become a $100 billion company in its trading debut.
Coupang opened trading in New York Thursday at $63.50 a share, an 81% jump from the price in its upsized $4.6 billion IPO Wednesday. The shares were up 58% to $55.29 at 12:58 p.m., giving it a market value of about $95 billion.
The offering by Coupang further accelerated the pace of IPOs on U.S. exchanges this year, elevating the total raised to more than $114 billion, compared with $180 billion in all of last year, itself a record, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Coupang’s IPO was also the biggest by any Asia-based company in New York since Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s $25 billion listing in 2014, the biggest ever in the U.S.
Coupang and its investors sold 130 million shares for $35 each in the IPO, after marketing them for $32 to $34 apiece. Late in the process, the selling stockers increased the shares they were selling to 30 million from 20 million. The previous price range had been boosted from $27 to $30 earlier.
Japanese conglomerate SoftBank Group Corp. is Coupang’s biggest shareholder. In November 2018, SoftBank’s Vision Fund invested $2 billion in the company in a deal that valued Coupang at $9 billion, people familiar with the matter said at the time. That funding followed $1 billion from SoftBank itself in 2015, valuing the startup at about $5 billion.
Founded in 2010 by Bom Kim, a Harvard University dropout, Coupang has grown into Korea’s version of Amazon.com Inc.
The company has aggressively expanded its delivery and logistics operations, putting 70% of the country’s population within a seven-mile radius of its distribution centers, according to its prospectus filing. Coupang has also invested in new business lines like food delivery and streaming services.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Allen & Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. led the offering. Coupang shares are trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday under the symbol CPNG.
For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com
Subscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.
©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
