By Nikhil Subba
Nov 8 (Reuters) - The initial public offering for China's
second-largest search engine, Sogou Inc, was priced at $13 per
American Depository share (ADS), according to a source close to
the matter, at the top end of the expected range of $11 to $13.
The 45 million ADS offering, with each ADS representing one
of the company's Class A ordinary share, raised about $585
million and is expected to debut on the New York Stock Exchange
under the symbol "SOGO" on Thursday.
Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings 0700.HK , a major Sogou
shareholder, uses Sogou Search as the default search engine in
its Mobile QQ browser and qq.com site.
Sogou is a unit of China's Sohu.com Inc SOHU.O , an
internet service company that includes search and gaming
platforms and will remain as Sogou's controlling shareholder
after the IPO.
Proceeds from the offering will be used for research and
development and marketing purposes, Sogou said in its IPO
filing.
Beijing-based Sogou, which competes with Baidu BIDU.O and
Alibaba's BABA.N UCWeb, reported net income of $66.7 million
for the nine months ended Sept. 30, compared with $45.4 million
for the same period a year earlier.
J.P. Morgan, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs and CICC were
among top underwriters to the offering.
(Reporting by Nikhil Subba in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter
Cooney)
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Keywords: SOGOU IPO/PRICING