Chinese Jobs Website Zhaopin Files For US IPO
Chinese jobs website operator Zhaopin Ltd filed with U.S. regulators to raise up to $100 million in an initial public offering of American depositary shares.
SEEK International Investments Pty Ltd, controlled by SEEK Ltd, which provides online employment advertising, training courses and invests in online employment marketplaces, holds 79 percent of Zhaopin shares.
Beijing-based Zhaopin operates zhaopin.com and was China's second-largest online recruitment services provider by 2013 revenue, the company said on Monday citing market research firm iResearch Public Data.
Zhaopin said it reported a loss of RMB 20.51 ($3.28) per share for the year ended June 30, 2013, compared with a profit of RMB 1.68 per share a year earlier.
The company told the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in a preliminary prospectus that Credit Suisse and UBS Investment Bank were underwriting the IPO. (http://r.reuters.com/cev98v)
Zhaopin said it planned to use the proceeds from the offering to repay debt, expanding into more markets, develop products and to upgrade its website.
The filing did not reveal how many shares the company planned to sell or their expected price.
The company intends to list its common stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "ZPIN".
The amount of money a company says it plans to raise in its first IPO filings is used to calculate registration fees. The final size of the IPO could be different.
($1 = 6.2455 Chinese Yuan)
(Reporting by Amrutha Gayathri in Bangalore; Editing by Joyjeet Das)