Weimob Issues 255 Million New Shares, Tencent Increases Holdings

Technology Author: Yang Shang Jul 28, 2019 09:59 PM (GMT+8)

The estimated net proceeds from the Vendor Placing and the Subscription is approximately HKD 1,157.1 million (USD 1479.9 million).

Weimob Inc. offers cloud-based marketing solutions to SMEs. Photo: Credit to Pexels

Weimob Inc. released an announcement to issue 255 million new shares at a price of HKD 4.6 (USD 0.59) per share on July 26. The estimated net proceeds from the Vendor Placing and the Subscription is approximately HKD 1,157.1 million (USD 1479.9 million).

Three original shareholders of Weimob - Tencent Holdings Ltd., Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC Pte. and BlackRock Inc. - increased their stakes in the Shanghai-based marketing-solutions provider.

Tencent shows fierce confidence in Weimob since its subsidiary, THL H Ltd., acquired 9,682 more stakes of the company, resulting in that Tencent holds 7.73% of Weimob’s shares and became the second-largest shareholder.

The company is planning to apply the net proceeds for pursuing strategic cooperation, potential investment and acquisition as well as supporting the post-acquisition integration and operations, according to the announcement.

Furthermore, Weimob intends to apply a portion of the net proceeds to increase investment in research and development as well as technology platform construction.

Weimob was founded in 2013 and applied for an initial public offering (IPO) in Hong Kong this January. The company focuses on assisting its clients to raise operating efficiency and customer engagement ability by offering cloud-based AI marketing solutions, fitting in the supplier ecosystem of Tencent’s social media service platform.

The target customers of Weimob are small and micro enterprises from various industries including e-commerce, brick-and-tile retail store, catering, hotel, entertainment service, advertising and so on. Some reputable brands adopt Weimob’s solutions such as global pharmaceutical company KOBAYASHI, Chinese leading men’s wear brand K-Boxing, Chinese famous snack brand Bestore and Japanese beauty titan DHC.

Weimob’s revenue achieved CNY 865 million (USD 125 million) last year with a 62% jump compared with a year before, according to the company’s financial report, which was beyond the expectation of many financial analysts.

Weimob’s market value has jumped 41.5% to HKD 9.17 billion (USD 1.17 billion) since its January IPO, with more than 2,800 employees and 2.8 million registered merchants, according to the company.