Chinese EV maker Xpeng increases U.S. IPO size to $1.5 billion

[August 27, 2020]  By Scott Murdoch and Yilei Sun

HONG KONG/BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese electric vehicle (EV) maker Xpeng <XPEV.N> said on Thursday it has increased the size of its U.S initial public offering (IPO) to about $1.5 billion.

 A woman walks by an Xpeng Motors showroom at its headquarters in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, China May 18, 2020. Picture taken May 18, 2020. REUTERS/Yilei Sun

Xpeng said in a filing that it would price its shares at $15 each, after initially indicating they would be sold for $11 to $13 when the deal was launched on Friday.

Xpeng, which counts Chinese e-commerce titan Alibaba <BABA.N> and Xiaomi Corp <1810.HK> among its backers, had initially targeted raising $1.11 billion.

The Guangzhou-based automaker had planned to sell 85 million American Depository Shares (ADS) but increased that to about 99.7 million shares following higher-than-expected demand from investors, according to the filing. Its shares will start trading in New York on Thursday.

Sources told Reuters about Xpeng's IPO details earlier on Thursday.

There is also a so-called greenshoe option in which another 14.96 million shares can be issued within the next 30 days that would allow Xpeng to raise a further $224.4 million.

BofA Securities, Credit Suisse, and J.P. Morgan. are joint bookrunners for the offering.

(Reporting by Scott Murdoch in Hong Kong and Yilei Sun in Beijing; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman, Himani Sarkar and Kim Coghill)

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