CHINA’S Kingsoft Cloud Holdings Ltd. aims to sell up to US$450 million in stock in a U.S. initial public offering (IPO), which could value the cloud service provider at as much as US$3.8 billion.

Kingsoft will be the first major U.S. IPO by a company that is neither a biotechnology firm nor a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) since the coronavirus outbreak roiled global stocks in March. Biotech and SPAC IPOs are typically immune to broader market swings.

Kingsoft offers cloud infrastructure as well as enterprise cloud and artificial intelligence of things services. Cloud computing has so far been one of the sectors boosted by the novel coronavirus outbreak as it drives more businesses to operate digitally and rely on cloud computing.

Kingsoft is looking to sell 25 million American depositary shares (ADS) between US$16 and US$18 per ADS, the company said Monday. It expects to price its IPO today and start trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange Friday under the symbol “KC.”

Existing shareholders Kingsoft Group and Xiaomi as well as Carmignac Gestion have shown an interest in anchoring the IPO, buying up to US$25 million, US$50 million and US$50 million in the stock offered, respectively.

The IPO is also the first gauge of U.S. investor demand for Chinese companies going public in New York after a fraud scandal sent shares in Chinese coffee chain Luckin Coffee into freefall last month.

Luckin, whose stock is down almost 90 percent in 2020, had one of the most successful U.S. IPOs by a Chinese firm last year.

Kingsoft estimated revenue for the first three months of 2020 were between 1.35 billion yuan (US$191.2 million) to 1.4 billion yuan, an increase in the range of 59.6 percent to 65.5 percent year on year.

(SD-Agencies)