Initial public offering: Tencent Music reportedly postponing US IPO

Visitors
are seen at a booth of Tencent Music Entertainment at the Beijing
Music and Life Show in Beijing, China, May 7,
2017.
Stringer/REUTERS

• Tencent Music is reportedly delaying its US
  initial public offering because of stock-market
  volatility.
• The offering could value the business in excess of $25 billion,
  making it one of the biggest IPOs ever for
  a technology company.
• US markets just suffered their steepest drop since
  February as concerns about rising interest rates and
  trade tensions sparked a sharp sell-off. 
• Tencent Music’s parent company Tencent
  has had more than $200 billion of market value wiped out since
  February.

Tencent Music Entertainment is reportedly delaying its
US initial public offering because of the recent stock-market
volatility.

The IPO,
which was initially scheduled for October 18, will be

postponed until at least November, 
The Wall
Street Journal reported on Thursday, citing sources familiar with
the matter. The offering could value the business in excess of $25 billion,
making it 
one of the biggest IPOs ever for
a technology company.

The China-based streaming-music service already met
with its underwriting team this week to discuss the price
range for its IPO, but they decided to wait several weeks on
worries that the recent market sell-off could weigh on the
pricing,
The WSJ added. 

US market have been hit hard in recent days, with
the S&P
500 declining more than 6% so far in October as concerns
about rising interest rates and trade tensions weigh.
The Dow Jones industrial
average shed more than 1,300 points over the last two
trading sessions. 

And the carnage isn’t just limited to the US. China’s
markets are among the hardest hit, with the
benchmark Shanghai Composite
, down more than 20%
this year and at the lowest level in four years.
Tencent Music’s parent company, Tencent
Holdings,
has dropped more than 20% since
releasing its quarterly results on August 15, and
has 
seen $200 billion of market cap wiped
out
since February.

Tencent Music
 
operates
several popular music brands in China — including QQ
Music, Kugou, Kuwo and WeSing — and had more
than 800 million unique monthly active users in the second
quarter of 2018, according to
a public filing.

For the year ended December 31, 2017, Tencent Music
said it earned RMB1.32 billion ($199 million) on revenue of
of RMB10.99 billion ($1.66 billion).

The company also said it generated a profit of RMB2.11
billion ($320 million) in the first half of this
year, 
almost three times as much as its RMB732
million profit during the same period in 2017.

Now read: