Chinese O2O home improvement firm SSLJ.com debuts on Nasdaq

NEW YORK - Chinese vertically integrated online-to-offline (O2O) home improvement service and product providers SSLJ.com Limited on Monday rang the Nasdaq Stock Market opening bell in celebration of its Initial Public Offerings (IPO), notching the first Nasdaq IPO of a Chinese company this year.

SSLJ.com, trading under the ticker symbol of "SSLJ," priced its initial public offering of 4 million Class A ordinary shares at a public offering price of $5.00 per share for a total of $20,000 in gross proceeds before expenses.

SSLJ.com started trading exactly at $5.00 per share on Monday, but then slid as US stocks continued its previous day's sell-off on Monday, with the Dow recording its worst one-day point drop in history. At the close, the company's shares tumbled 28.20 percent to $3.59 a share.

"Our listing as a public company on the Nasdaq is a significant milestone for SSLJ, which will give us a better growth platform to create more value for clients and shareholders," Wei Zheng, chairman and CEO of SSLJ.com, said at the opening bell ceremony.

Compared to traditional home improvement service providers, SSLJ.com's O2O business model provides its customers with a highly cost efficient one-stop overall home improvement package and attracts online user traffic, Zheng believed.

According to the Prospectus, the company plans to use the net proceeds of this offering primarily for general corporate purposes, which may include establishment of new branch companies and sales offices, expansion of existing branch companies, investment in product research and development, sales and marketing activities, etc.

Founded in July 2014, SSLJ's revenue amounted to $7.3 million during the six months ended June 30, 2017, with a net loss of $9.2 million, due to advertising activities in the second quarter of 2017, together with increased effort in building up its research and development department, the company said in the Prospectus.

According to a June 2017 Euromonitor report, SSLJ.com had the third largest market share in China among the vertically integrated O2O home improvement service and product providers in 2016.