SoftBank-backed OneConnect sees valuation tumble in U.S. IPO

By Joshua Franklin and Scott Murdoch

NEW YORK/SYDNEY (Reuters) - Ping An Insurance Co's <2318.HK> OneConnect Financial Technology <OCFT.K> said on Thursday it raised around $312 million in its U.S. initial public offering, valuing the company at around $3.7 billion (2.9 billion pounds).

OneConnect sold 31.2 million American depositary shares (ADS) at $10 each. Earlier this month, it had aimed to sell 36 million ADS at a price range of $12 to $14 per share, but on Wednesday it lowered the range to $9 to $10 and set a goal of selling 26 million ADS.

The $3.7 billion valuation is well below its $7.5 billion mark last year when the company raised $750 million in its maiden funding round from investors including Japan's SoftBank Corp <9434.T> and Japanese financial firm SBI Group.

The float comes as tech investor SoftBank smarts from the abandoned share sale of major portfolio firm WeWork, as well as its first quarterly loss in 14 years, dragged down by an $8.9 billion hit at its giant Vision Fund, through which it invested in OneConnect.

OneConnect had revenues of 1.55 billion yuan (171.6 million pounds) in the first nine months of 2019, up 72% from the year-ago period, but losses widened to 1 billion yuan from 579 million yuan.

In 2019, U.S. investors have been reluctant to back companies going public with large losses, and shares of money-losing companies like Uber Technologies Inc <UBER.N> and Lyft Inc <LYFT.O> have struggled since their IPOs.

OneConnect, which provides technology solutions to small and medium-sized financial institutions, was eyeing a valuation of about $8 billion and an IPO of up to $1 billion, sources told Reuters in June.

It changed the listing venue to New York from Hong Kong a few months ago in the hope of achieving a higher valuation, Reuters reported, with massive anti-government protests in Hong Kong making markets jittery.

OneConnect is due to begin trading on Friday on the New York Exchange under the symbol "OCFT".

Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley are among the main banks working on the IPO.

(Reporting by Joshua Franklin and Scott Murdoch; Additional reporting by Akshay Balan; Editing by Sandra Maler, Richard Chang and Leslie Adler)