China's Zhaopin makes public debut on NYSE

China's leading career platform Zhaopin Limited made its trading debut on the New York Stock Exchange June 12, 2014. [Photo/Xinhua]

NEW YORK -- China's leading career platform Zhaopin Limited made its trading debut on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) Thursday, marking the ninth Chinese company to list shares in the US market this year.

Zhaopin announced that it has priced its initial public offering (IPO) of 5.61 million American depositary shares (ADSs), each representing two Class A ordinary shares of the company, at $13.50 per ADS for a total offering size of $75.7 million.

Zhaopin's shares began trading at $14.51 a share under the ticker symbol "JPIN" Thursday morning.

Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC and UBS Securities LLC acted as joint bookrunners for the offering.

Evan Sheng Guo, Zhaopin's chief executive officer, told Xinhua that the company planned to use the proceeds from the offering for business expansion and merger and acquisition deals.

Guo expressed optimism about the future of recruitment and career-related services in China, saying "with China's urbanization trends continuing to develop, the company has a brilliant future in tier-three and tier-four cities in China."

The Beijing-based Zhaopin is the second largest online recruitment services provider as measured by revenues in 2013. It focuses on connecting users with relevant job opportunities through the company's website zhaopin.com.

In the nine months ended March 31, 2014, approximately 11.4 million job postings were placed on Zhaopin's platform by 274,450 employers including multinational corporations, small- and medium- sized enterprises and State-owned entities, the company said in its IPO announcement.

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