Of late, Ping An Insurance’s OneConnect Financial Technology reduced its planned US IPO (initial public offering) by 28% and decreased its target valuation, dealing another blow to its financier SoftBank, which is still recovering from the repercussions of WeWork’s failed listing. Reportedly, OneConnect fixed a price range of $9–$10 a share for its IPO of 26 million shares, which is down from the $12–$14 a share range it had planned previously. The firm also downsized the offering to 26 Million ADS (American depositary shares) from 36 Million ADS. OneConnect, which is a part of China’s largest insurer by market value, enumerates Japan’s SoftBank and financial company SBI Group as some of its major investors.
The higher end of the price range costs OneConnect at around $3.64 Billion. That is below its $7.5 Billion valuations of the last year when it collected $750 Million in its first funding round from shareholders counting SoftBank and SBI Group. The float came since tech financier SoftBank smarts from the ditched share sale of WeWork, in addition to its first quarterly loss in the last 14 Years affected by an $8.9 Billion hit at its huge Vision Fund through which it spent in OneConnect. Many other latent stock market listings have been delayed since the disintegration of WeWork’s scheduled launch in September and investment bankers are worried that the trend might continue in the next year.
On a similar note, recently SoftBank was in the news as its Vision Fund 2 has held discussions to put in $150 Million in Honor, a home healthcare start-up. According to sources, while the Honor speculation has not been sanctioned by the Vision Fund’s venture committee yet, it marks one of the potential bets for the big new fund. There are a number of Vision Fund 2 investments in the works, counting some that have been authorized by the investment committee, stated two sources.
