By Ron Chen, Correspondent ASEAN Region and Godson Umejiego, Correspondent USA

Didi Chuxing Technology Co. is exploring a US listing via a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC). Against this backdrop, e-commerce was the most successful theme among the technology, media and telecom (TMT) initial public offerings (IPOs) between 2018 and 2020 and offers a positive outlook for the China-based ride-hailing giant’s IPO, says GlobalData.

While the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the TMT IPO market in the first half of 2020, it recovered strongly in the second half. As the Chinese economy has largely recovered from the pandemic, Didi has also seen its revenues and daily rides recovering above even the pre-pandemic levels.

GlobalData’s research shows that over the last three years, key themes such as e-commerce and mobile have been associated with the most successful capital raisings.

Associate Project Manager of Thematic Research at GlobalData, Swati Verma comments: “Didi is considering New York for IPO, likely taking note of the postponement of Alibaba’s Ant Group IPO in November 2020. Ant Group surprisingly cancelled its IPO in Shanghai and Hong Kong exchanges at the request of local regulators. Didi hopes to avoid tighter regulatory scrutiny of the company’s business operations.

“A growing number of TMT companies have ditched the traditional IPO route in 2020 and instead combined with SPACs to go public. Benefits of merging with these shell companies include a less intrusive IPO process with fewer disclosure requirements. Such reverse merger listings have gained popularity as cheaper and faster alternatives to traditional IPOs. Didi is the latest company to explore going public in the US through a merger with SPAC.”