Oct 17 (Reuters) - Chinese online micro-credit provider Qudian Inc’s initial public offering was priced at $24 per American depository share, according to sources close to the matter, above the expected range of $19-$22 each. The 37.5 million shares offering raised about $900 million, making it the largest U.S.-listing by a Chinese company this year. At $24 per share price, Qudian has a market value of as much as $7.9 billion. Backed by Alibaba’s banking unit Ant Financial, Qudian operates a website that allows college students and young white-collar workers to buy laptops, smartphones and other consumer electronics on monthly installments. Founded over three years ago, the company provided $5.6 billion of credit in H1 2017 to 7 million active borrowers. Qudian’s net income jumped near eight-times to 973.7 million yuan ($143.6 million) in the six months ended June 30, while revenue rose near five-fold to 1.83 billion yuan ($270.4 million) in the same period. Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, Citigroup, CICC and UBS are joint bookrunners on the IPO. (Reporting by Roopal Verma, Nikhil Subba and Diptendu Lahiri in Bengaluru; editing by Ankur Banerjee)
Alibaba-backed online micro-lender Qudian has raised around $900m during its initial public offering, the largest in the US by a Chinese company this year. Shares were priced at $24, above the expected $19-$22 range. The company, whose platform enables students and young professionals to buy consumer electronics for monthly repayments, posted revenue of CNY1.83bn ($276m) in the six months through June.