Sea plots share sale that could raise over $1.5b

Sea is aiming to raise as much as US$1.55 billion in a secondary public offering of shares to fund expansion and operations.

The Singapore-based ecommerce and gaming firm is planning to sell 60 million American depositary shares (ADS) – each representing a single class A share in the company – as part of the underwritten public offering.

Forrest Li, founder and group CEO, Sea / Photo credit: Sea

Each ADS is priced at US$22.50, which means a full sale of all 60 million offered ADSs could raise the company as much as US$1.35 billion.

Sea has granted underwriters a 30-day greenshoe option to purchase up to an additional 9 million ADSs. If exercised, the option could take the total amount raised to US$1.55 billion.

The company – which operates pan-Southeast Asian ecommerce marketplace Shopee and digital entertainment platform Garena – expects to use the capital raised from the share sale for business expansion and “other general corporate purposes,” it said in a statement.

See: Can Shopee become profitable? Here’s an in-depth analysis

Sea’s closing price for shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange on March 5 was US$24.50 per share.

Chinese tech giant Tencent – which was Sea’s biggest shareholder prior to its US$1.2 billion New York IPO in October 2017 – and an entity affiliated with one of Sea’s directors are together expected to purchase 6.3 million ADSs at the public offering price and terms, worth around US$171 million in total.

Tencent was earlier reported to have indicated an interest in buying a tranche of the ADSs worth US$50 million.

Update: March 6, 11:32 am – added information on the pricing and allocation of shares after receiving further details from Sea.