Rival to Alibaba's Ant Group is preparing for listing again after one and a half years.
LianLian DigiTech plans to raise as much as CNY 1.5 billion yuan (USD 223 million) ahead of the IPO in Hong Kong as soon as next year, people familiar with the matter say.
As of press time, LianLian DigiTech has yet to respond.
LianLian DigiTech is working with CICC (SH:601995) on the financing, and the venture capital arm of China Mobile (0941:HK) has expressed interest in participating. This round of funding would bring LianLian DigiTech's valuation to around CNY 20 billion (USD 2.9 billion).
The company is China's first sino-foreign joint venture bank card clearing institution, with business covering from global payments and services to bank card clearing and others. It specializes in providing cross-border payment services to e-commerce giants like Amazon and Shopee and is currently valued at about CNY 16 billion.
LianLian DigiTech entered the listing counselling on the SSE STAR MARKET in December 2020, and CICC acted as the counselling institution. The Company's actual controller, Zhang Zhengyu, held 26.02% of the issuer's shares. Everbright Investment, Boyu Capital and Sequoia Zhensheng held 7.95%, 6.05% and 5.31% of shares, respectively.
In 2021, LianLian DigiTech submitted a pre-listing supportive document endorsed by CICC to the mainland securities regulator, disclosing early IPO preparations, with no more news since then.
Currently, LianLian DigiTech has eight board members; among which, Yan Yan, a well-known venture capital magnate and chief partner of SAIF Asia Investment Fund, stepped down as a director on April 29 this year.
The company's competitors include Ant Group, SEMEPAY and PayInOne (Chinese: 指增科技).