China’s WeRide(WRD Proposed), which describes itself as the world’s only autonomous driving company with test permits in four countries, unveiled the terms of its $109.7 million IPO after the closing bell on Friday (Aug. 9, 2024). WeRide intends to price its IPO this week. WeRide rolled onto the IPO Calendar as the only sizable deal during the traditional slowdown in August, when a handful of small deals and a few SPACs have kept the IPO market’s wheels turning.
Reuters highlighted this fact about the IPO’s timing: “The IPO announcement comes at a time when the Biden administration is expected to propose barring Chinese software in autonomous vehicles in the United States in the coming weeks.”
WeRide plans to offer 6.45 million American Depositary Shares (6,452,000 ADS) at a price range of $15.50 to $18.50 to raise $109.7 million, if priced at the $17.00 mid-point of its range. Each ADS equals three ordinary shares. This is a NASDAQ listing. The ADS offered in the IPO are being offered by WeRide, Inc., the Cayman Islands-incorporated holding company, and not by the underlying business based in Guangzhou, according to the prospectus.
WeRide would have a market cap of about $5 billion, assuming that the IPO is priced at its $17.00 mid-point.
Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan and CICC (China International Capital Corp.) are the lead joint book-runners of WeRide’s IPO.
WeRide, founded in February 2017, cited a number of “firsts” and milestones in the prospectus:
*First autonomous driving company in the world with products operating and testing in 30 cities across seven countries;
*The only autonomous driving company in the world to obtain test permits for autonomous driving vehicles in four countries – mainland China, its home; the U.S.; the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Singapore.
*First company in the world to offer paid L4 robotaxi services to the public – with L4 (and higher levels) defined in the prospectus as when “vehicles become truly driverless, allowing (a) human to be completely free of the task of driving and the vehicles are capable of performing all driving functions under common weather conditions.”
*First company in the world to develop a purpose-built L4 robobus designed for the open road, as well as the first to launch driverless robobus services on the open road to the public;
*First autonomous driving company in the world to accumulate 10,000 purpose-built L4 autonomous driving vehicle orders, and
*The only autonomous driving company to achieve mass production of an ADAS solution within 18 months into development, the quickest among peers. (ADAS is an acronym that stands for advanced driver-assistance system.)
All of those “firsts” and milestones, however, have not built up WeRide’s bottom line so far.
WeRide reported a net loss that was nearly five times its revenue in 2023: Net loss of $268.2 million on revenue of $55.3 million for the 12 months that ended Dec. 31, 2023, according to the prospectus.
Light August Traffic
The rest of this week’s IPO Calendar shows light traffic, typical for August. Six small IPOs are on this week’s roster as possibly pricing this week. Five of those six deals are NASDAQ listings. The lineup includes:
Trident Digital Tech Holdings Ltd. (TDTH Proposed), a carry-over from last week. Trident Digital Tech Holdings Ltd. is the parent of a Singapore company that serves small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) by providing digital transformation services, including e-commerce sites and data analysis.
Trident Digital Tech Holdings Ltd. plans to raise $10.8 million by offering 1.8 million American Depositary Shares (ADS) at a price range of $5.00 to $7.00. The pricing date is indicated as sometime during the week of Aug. 12, 2024. WallachBeth Capital and Revere Securities are the joint book-runners, according to the prospectus. This is a NASDAQ listing.
Stay tuned.
(For more information about these companies, please check the IPO Calendar and the individual IPO Profiles found on IPOScoop.com’s website.)
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