Tencent Music moving ahead with its $1.2B U.S. stock market debut

Tencent Music Entertainment’s initial public offering is back in motion, two months after the company reportedly postponed it amid a global selloff. In a regulatory filing today, the company, China’s largest streaming music service, said it plans to offer 82 million American depositary shares (ADS), representing 164 million Class A ordinary shares, for between $13 to $15 each. That means the IPO will potentially raise up to $1.23 billion.

The company is offering 41.03 million ADS, while selling shareholders will offer the remaining 40.97 million ADS. It will list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol TME. According to the filing, Tencent Music’s controlling shareholder, Tencent Holdings, has agreed to buy Class A ordinary shares valued at up to $32 million.

With about 800 million monthly active users, Tencent Music is not only China’s largest online music entertainment platform, but one of the biggest in the world. To put that number in context, Spotify, one of Tencent Music’s shareholders and strategic partners, currently has 170 million monthly active users.

Tencent Music first filed for its stock market debut at the beginning of October, but then the WSJ reported that it had halted its IPO plans because of a selloff in global markets that hit Chinese markets particularly hard. The stock market is currently rallying, however, thanks to a truce in the U.S.-China trade war.

The offering’s lead underwriters are Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Deutsche Bank Securities, and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

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