Beijing-based luxury goods e-commerce platform Secoo (NASDAQ: SECO) on Monday said that it has received a non-binding proposal from its founder, chairman, and CEO Richard Rixue Li to take the company private in an all-cash transaction. Li offered to acquire all of the outstanding class A ordinary shares that he or his affiliates do not own for USD 6.54 per share or USD 3.27 per American depositary share (ADS).
The company’s ADS rose 22.82% to USD 2.96 after the announcement, reaching a market capitalization of USD 209.1 million. Secoo, founded in 2008, listed in 2017 after floating its ADS at USD 13 apiece.
In the third quarter, general merchandise volume on Secoo reached RMB 4.1 billion (USD 606.9) million, up 12.5% year-on-year. Revenue, however, declined to RMB 1.3 billion (USD 202 million), from RMB 1.9 billion in the third quarter of 2019, while net income was RMB 20.8 million (USD 3.1 million), down from RMB 62.1 million in the third quarter of 2019.
Online consumer loan provider Qudian (NYSE: QD) in June 2020 acquired a 28.9% stake, purchasing 10.2 million newly issued Class A ordinary shares of the company for USD 100 million.
Secoo follows several other US-listed Chinese companies that decided to go private amid growing Sino-US tensions and lack of investor interest.
Online classifieds platform 58.com announced in June that it entered into an agreement to be acquired by a consortium of investors for USD 8.7 billion. One month later, internet giant Tencent proposed to buy out Sogou for USD 2.1 billion. Sina, the internet portal and owner of microblogging service Weibo, disclosed in September that CEO Charles Chao’s company New Wave will pay roughly USD 2.6 billion to buy the outstanding ordinary shares.
