SINA Corp. has selected banks for a U.S. initial public offering (IPO) of its Sina Weibo microblogging service worth about US$500 million, sources with knowledge of the matter said yesterday.

    Credit Suisse Group AG and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. are working on the planned listing, said the sources. The share sale may start in the second half, one of the sources said.

    The planned offering comes as Sina Weibo faces competition from Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s WeChat messaging application. The business came close to breaking even in the third quarter as its advertising revenue more than doubled from a year earlier.

    Sina Weibo is China’s biggest microblogging outlet, with 60.2 million daily active users at the end of September, according to Sina’s third-quarter results. Sina chief executive officer Charles Chao said Nov. 12 the company is looking for a listing of the business.

    Liu Qi, a Beijing-based spokesman for Sina, yesterday declined to comment on whether the company hired banks for an IPO in the United States. The Financial Times reported yesterday the plan on its website, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter. (SD-Agencies)