Staff of Reuters 3 minutes Reuters (Reuters) – Didi Global Inc, a Chinese ride-hailing behemoth, is expected to open more than 14 percent higher in its initial public offering on Wednesday, valuing the business at more than $77 billion and making it one of the biggest IPOs in the United States this year. On November 20, 2020, a guy passes past a Didi logo at Didi Chuxing’s headquarters in Beijing, China. Florence Lo/Florence Lo/Florence Lo/Florence Lo/Florence Lo/Florence Lo/F SoftBank-backed Didi’s shares were expected to open between $15.5 and $16 at 11:25 a.m. ET, up from the initial public offering price of $14. Didi raised $4.4 billion with an upsized offering of 316.8 million American Depositary Shares priced at the high end of its $13 to $14 range. Its IPO in New York will be the largest stock offering by a Chinese business in the United States since Alibaba raised $25 billion in 2014. Full Truck Alliance, dubbed “Uber for trucks,” raised $1.6 billion in its initial public offering in the United States so far this year. Didi was started in 2012 by Cheng Wei as Didi Dache, a taxi-hailing app, and is backed by technology investment titans Alibaba, Tencent, and Uber. It amalgamated with Kuaidi Dache to form Didi Kuaidi, which was renamed Didi Chuxing later. According to Forbes, Cheng, who was born in 1983 in a small village in Jiangxi’s southern province and had worked as an assistant to the CEO of a foot massage company, was worth $1.2 billion before Didi’s stock market debut. Cheng’s share in Didi was valued at $4.4 billion at the time of the IPO. When he couldn’t find a taxi on a cold winter night in Beijing, he conceived the idea for a ride-hailing platform. Didi’s largest investor, SoftBank, will own a 20.2 percent share in the company after the IPO. Tencent will keep 6.4 percent of Didi, while Uber will keep 12 percent. Cheng will control 6.5 percent of the business he founded. Didi, the world’s largest mobility-technology platform, went on to buy rival Uber’s China division in 2016, and Uber retained a stake in Didi at the time. In 2018, the corporation chose to invest $1 billion in its vehicle services division as part of a bigger rebranding effort. It has also made significant investments to develop its main business outside of its home market, either by investing in local partners or by establishing services. Didi holds a commanding position in China’s online ride-hailing market, with 4,000 outlets in 16 countries. According to a recent regulatory filing, it has over 490 million annual active users. Private car-hailing, bike-sharing, delivery, freight and logistics, and financial services are among its services. Didi is the latest Chinese company to launch on the New York Stock Exchange, despite tensions between Washington and Beijing. Despite the political squabbles, Refinitiv data shows that 29 Chinese companies raised $7.6 billion in IPOs in the United States in the first half of the year. Morgan Stanley Investment Management had expressed interest in subscribing up to $750 million in Didi’s IPO and Temasek $500 million. The primary underwriters were Goldman Sachs (Asia) L.L.C., Morgan Stanley, and J.P. Morgan. Noor Zainab Hussain contributed reporting from Bengaluru, and Arun Koyyur edited the piece./nRead More