China IPO Debut: E-Commerce China Dangdang (DANG)

We have another IPO from China today that may look like a NASDAQ IPO but it is a New York Stock Exchange IPO.  E-commerce China Dangdang Inc. (NYSE: DANG) priced at a premium for its initial public offering of 17,000,000 American Depositary Shares.  The deal was priced at $16.00 per ADS, but the range was lifted once and it priced even higher.

The initial price range was put at $11.00 to $13.00 per share.  Then the deal was raised to $13.00 to $15.00 per share.  $16,00 represents a premium even to the premium.  Of the offering, some 13.2 million ADSs are being sold by the company and 3.8 million shares are being sold by shareholders.

Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley are listed as the joint bookrunners for the IPO; co-managers include Oppenheimer & Co., Piper Jaffray, and also Cowen and Company.  The underwriters have been granted an option to purchase up to an additional 300,000 ADSs from the company and up to 2.25 million ADSs from the selling shareholders within 30 days to cover overallotments.

The company is a B2C e-commerce company in China, business to consumer.  Each ADS represents 5 shares of its Class A common stock.  The company website offers more than 590,000 book titles as well as other media products and selected general merchandise categories.

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JON C. OGG