According to Reuters, "Segway is blazing a trail..." to list on the sharemarket.
The company intends to raise $300 million (USD) in an Initial Public Offering (IPO) on the relatively new STAR board of the Shanghai Stock Exchange. The STAR board is a tech-focused board, similar to the tech-focused NASDQ board on the New York Stock Exchange.
According to Caixing approval was granted on 12 June, in a deal that demonstrates how far Chinese authorities have come in liberalising listing criteria in the interests of driving growth and increasing the attractiveness of the STAR board with investors internationally.
Segway came close to an IPO more than a decade ago, but plans were derailed by the Global Financial Crisis (2007-8).
UPDATE 23 JULY 2020
According to Technod, Segway-Ninebot have gained final approval to launch on the STAR Market (see "Xiaomi-backed scooter maker Ninebot readies for STAR Market IPO"):
Chinese scooter maker Ninebot on Tuesday gained final approval from the Shanghai Stock Exchange to register on the bourse’s Nasdaq-style STAR Market, according to a notice on the board’s website.
Why it matters: The Beijing-based company, incorporated in the Cayman Islands, is expected to become the first foreign-registered company with a variable-interest entity (VIE) structure to list on a stock exchange in Mainland China.
- The STAR Market, which opened for trading a year ago, has allowed VIEs and unprofitable companies to list, in a bid to lure Chinese tech companies home from New York.
- The effort started to pay off: Alibaba’s fintech affiliate Ant Group on Monday announced a dual-listing plan to IPO on the STAR Market and the Hong Kong Exchange.
Details: Ninebot has been allowed to submit registration filings to the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the country’s top securities watchdog, for a final review, the STAR Market’s website shows (in Chinese).
- Ninebot plans to issue around 7 billion Chinese Depository Receipts (CDRs) through its custodian bank, raising more than RMB 2 billion (around $287 million) from the domestic market. CDRs are shares of non-Chinese companies that are allowed to trade on China’s financial markets, functioning similarly to American Depositary Receipts.
Context: Founded in 2014, Ninebot is now the world’s largest vendor of electric scooters. The company snapped up failing American personal-transport manufacturer Segway in 2015.
- Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi owns around 22% of Ninebot. The scooter maker is also one of the so-called “Xiaomi ecosystem enterprises”—companies that leverage Xiaomi’s retail channels to sell their products.
- Ninebot lists Xiaomi as an important customer with related-party sales to Xiaomi accounting for 52.3% of its total revenue in 2019, according to its prospectus.
- The company booked revenue of RMB 4.6 billion and a net loss of RMB 459 million in 2019.