If all goes according to plan, the biggest of China’s Twitter-like microblogging services will raise more than $380 million in its coming initial public offering.
In a revised prospectus, the Sina Corporation‘s Weibo says that it hopes to price its sale of 20 million American depositary shares at $17 to $19 each. At the midpoint of that range, the company would be valued at $3.7 billion.
Should investors prove especially eager to own a piece of Weibo, underwriters could sell additional shares that would value the company at closer to $4 billion.
That would be a fraction of Twitter’s worth, which was more than $25 billion as of the market’s close on Friday. But it would still represent continued belief that Weibo will continue to build on its strong popularity in China.
Last year, Weibo (pronounced WAY-bwoh) was valued at about $3.3 billion when it accepted an investment from the Alibaba Group, the Chinese online commerce giant that is planning its own listing in the United States.
The company plans to list on the Nasdaq stock market under the ticker symbol “WB.†Its offering is being led by Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse.
