Visa application specialist and OTA Baicheng recently completed a variable interest entities (VIE) disassembly and will immediately return to the Chinese capital market to list on the New Third Board.
According to the VIE disassembly agreement, Baicheng’s main shareholder Baicheng Technologies will distribute a portion of its shares to some of Baicheng’s domestic investors. Another group of domestic investors will gain shares in Baicheng through capital injections. By October 20 next year, Baicheng’s overseas investors will have all divested their interests in the OTA.
Alibaba holds a 16.47% stake and is the second largest and most high-profile shareholder in Baicheng. The other major shareholders include Tianjin Ruihengshun, Hangzhou Alibaba, GF Fund and Baicheng Technologies.
Baicheng reported revenues of RMB185 million in 2013, RMB180 million in 2014 and RMB192 million from January to August 2015. However, it also reported losses of RMB17.6 million in 2013, RMB36.62 million in 2014 and RMB17.6 million in the first eight months of this year.
Baicheng said the losses were incurred as the company put its resources into maintaining the visa processing platform as well as developing the travel platform brand and its IT systems in the initial developing stage of its lifecycle in the online industry.
“We have offered generous discounts and a variety of added value bargains for our visa processing and vacation products in order to expand our user base and to boost user retention in our strategy to become a leader in our segment. As a result we have reported steady losses in those periods,” a Baicheng spokesperson said.
With easier access to financing after returning to the New Third Board, Baicheng will likely tap into the capital, technology and customer resources of its strategic investors.(Translation by David)
