QingKe Completes $46M NASDAQ IPO

Qingke raised $46 million at the bottom end of the IPO’s price range

A Morgan Stanley-backed apartment rental operator leads the way in Mingtiandi’s roundup of Asia real estate headlines today with the news that the loss-making company raised $46 million through a US IPO, with shares priced at the lower end of the range $17 to $19 range.

In other news around the region, WeWork’s backer admits he made some “really bad” mistakes, while a US private equity giant says investors are waking up to opportunities in Southeast Asia.

Elsewhere, a Singapore-listed developer’s Hangzhou pre-sales sell out.

QingKe Completes $46M NASDAQ Listing

Q&K International Group Limited (Qingke), a Chinese long-term apartment rental firm backed by Morgan Stanley Private Equity Asia venture capital firms including SAIF Partners and Morningside Venture Capital, has completed an initial public offering on the NASDAQ in New York, raising approximately $45.9 million in total.

It is the first stock market listing by Chinese long-term apartment rental companies in the US. The company, under the ticker symbol “QK”, offered 2.7 million American Depositary Shares (ADS) at a price of $17 apiece, at the bottom of its previously indicated price range of $17 to $19 per share. Read more>>

Softbank’s Son Admits Errors of Judgement Over WeWork

Maysayoshi Son, the billionaire founder of SoftBank, said his “really bad” judgement championing US office-sharing company WeWork left the Japanese conglomerate and its massive tech-investment fund with the biggest quarterly loss in its 38-year history.

Standing in front of a screen projection of stormy seas and dire Japanese-language headlines, Son told a news conference in Tokyo that he had made serious errors in judgement that led the group to post earnings “of the deepest red”. Read more>>

Warburg Pincus Says Investors Have Woken Up to Southeast Asia

Private equity firms are facing stiffer competition in Southeast Asia as geopolitical tensions, including the US-China trade war, have prompted peers to look for investment targets outside the mainland and developed markets in Asia, according to Warburg Pincus.

“Investors have kind of woken up to the opportunities in Southeast Asia, in particular Vietnam,” Jeffrey Perlman, a Warburg Pincus managing director and head of Southeast Asia, said in an interview. Read more>>

China Regulates Housing Market with New Measures

China’s property market saw more regulations in the first ten months of the year, data from a real estate agency showed.

A total of 482 housing regulatory measures were rolled out during the January-October period, up 20 percent year on year, data from Centaline Property said. Read more>>

Compass to Set Up Tech Hub in Hyderabad

Compass has announced plans for a new technology hub in Hyderabad, India.

The new tech hub will help accelerate the company’s software development for its real estate agents by complementing existing hubs in New York City, Seattle and Washington, DC. Read more>>

Tune in again tomorrow for more news, and be sure to follow @Mingtiandi on Twitter, or bookmark Mingtiandi’s LinkedIn page for headlines as they happen.