Secoo trades on Nasdaq after launching IPO

Secoo Holding Ltd, an e-commerce luxury retailer in China, opened for trading on the Nasdaq exchange on Friday after launching its IPO and raising about $140 million.

Secoo offered 8.5 million ADS (American depositary shares) at $13 per share, raising roughly $140 million in its IPO on Thursday, including $30 million from two cornerstone investors: Country Garden Holdings, one of the largest estate agents in China, and YTL Group, the infrastructure construction group in Malaysia.

American investment bank Jefferies and BNP Paribas are the main bookrunners on the IPO for Secoo, which trades under the ticker symbol SECO.

It was the first launch of an e-commerce IPO since Alibaba's IPO 36 months ago.

Established in 2008, Secoo Group has an e-commerce platform (www.secoo.com), mobile APP, and international experience stores located in metropolitan cities in China.

Secoo's number of registered members was 15.1 million as of June 30, and it had about 300,000 active customers in 2016.

Rixue Li, Secoo's founder and CEO, said that the high-end luxury market has grown rapidly in the past few years, and that SECOO hopes to seize the opportunity to meet people's pursuit of quality life and healthy lifestyle, and become a satisfying "high-end life service platform".

Secoo said that it intends to use the net proceeds from the IPO to invest in marketing and branding efforts, including brand coverage and promotional activities, setting up additional offline experience centers, optimize supply chain and global logistics network, strengthen IT infrastructure and technology capabilities, and for working capital needs and potential acquisitions.