To the moon: Singapore-based WeBuy Global Ltd. (WBUY) shares jumped to $10.00 – for a moonshot gain of 150 percent from their $4.00 IPO price – at around 12:45 p.m. EDT today in their NASDAQ debut. Volume was about 1.09 million shares. The stock hit its intraday high at $10.84 at around 3:10 p.m. EDT. Within a few minutes, WeBuy’s stock gave up about half of that gain to close its first day of NASDAQ trading at $5.34 – up $1.34 for a gain of 33.5 percent – on volume of 4.79 million shares.
The Southeast Asian community buying club’s stock entered moonshot territory – doubling its IPO price – when it shot up to $8.24 at around 12:25 p.m. EDT. The stock opened at $7.75 – up $3.75 or up 93.8 percent from their $4.00 IPO price – in their NASDAQ debut today (Thursday, Oct. 19, 2023). The first trade occurred at 12:01 p.m. EDT on volume of 70,666 shares, NASDAQ records show. The stock slipped a few minutes later to trade at $6.99 – and then jumped above $8.00 on volume of more than 424,000 shares.
WeBuy’s moonshot debut occurred against the backdrop of the overall U.S. stock market’s slide as U.S. Treasury bond yields surged. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said the Fed will “carefully weigh” next steps. (See: Bloomberg, MarketWatch and Yahoo Finance coverage.) Thursday, Oct. 19, was the 36th anniversary of the 1987 U.S. stock market crash on “Black Monday,” when the Dow Jones industrial average plunged 508 points – or 22.6 percent.
WeBuy Global Ltd. increased the size of its IPO to 3.8 million shares – up from 3.5 million shares in the prospectus – and priced the deal at $4.00 – the low end of its $4.00-to-$4.50 range – to raise $15.2 million on Wednesday night, Oct. 18, 2023.
The company plans to use about 25 percent of the IPO proceeds to expand its social media-driven community group buying business in Indonesia, the prospectus says. Another 30 percent of the IPO proceeds will be used to develop and expand its business in Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, according to the prospectus.
EF Hutton was the sole book-runner.
WeBuy Global Ltd., based in Singapore, is an e-commerce platform that connects Southeast Asian social media users with similar interests in food (groceries) and travel. The company caters to customers in Singapore and Indonesia. Social media users connect on online platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, WeChat, WhatsApp, TikTok or YouTube. Through those connections, community groups are formed.
The company’s community group buying business is facilitated by group leaders, who place bulk orders for groceries or other items for the members of their group, the prospectus says. This process lets WeBuy provide significant savings to its members.
“We believe that our ‘group buy’ business model has transformed conventional shopping avenues, as we are able to achieve attractive efficient cost-savings for our customers to enjoy (which are cost savings similar to that enjoyed as a group purchase and bulk order), without having to undertake bulk purchases individually, through a community-centric approach,” the prospectus says. “We believe that this model allows us to offer competitive prices for our customers, which enables us to be a more attractive shopping platform as compared to our competitors.”
This story, published on Feb. 11, 2021, by KrAsia, a digital media company, explains how WeBuy works:
Webuy is Southeast Asia’s breakout social commerce service: Startup Stories
WeBuy Global Ltd. is not yet profitable, according to financial statements in the prospectus. For the year that ended Dec. 31, 2022, WeBuy reported a net loss of $6.7 million on revenue of $44.56 million.
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