Analysis: Manbang Group goes public

Full Truck Alliance, a China-based trucking services platform developer, raised nearly $1.57bn in an initial public offering (IPO), which gave an exit to internet conglomerates SoftBank, Alphabet, Baidu and Tencent. The IPO was comprised of 82.5 million American Depositary Shares, each representing 20 ordinary shares, issued on the New York Stock Exchange. The shares were priced at the top of its $17 to $19 range. The price subsequently rose above $20 per share, giving the company a market capitalisation of over $21bn. In parallel with the IPO, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board and an affiliate of Mubadala Investment Company purchased $100m of additional shares through a private placement.

Full Truck Alliance was formed in 2017 when freight booking services Huochebang and Yunmanman merged to form Full Truck Alliance, also known as Manbang Group. The company runs a digital freight platform that provides shippers with access to a network of some 2.8 million trucks, employing artificial intelligence to increase efficiency. It made a $532m net loss in 2020 from just over $395m in revenue. The IPO proceeds will be used for expanding its services and strengthening infrastructure development and technology.

The company is part of the broader transport and mobility space, from which have seen some exits from corporate-backed businesses over the years, as illustrated on the bar chart below by GCV Analytics. The number of such exits – whether acquisitions, IPO or other, has not really exceeded 19-20 even in peak years. However, by mid-June 2021, we had already tracked 18 such exits, worth an estimated $14.21bn, with 11 of them being reverse mergers with SPACs. Thus, there is clearly an upward trend in exits from the mobility space and Manbang´s IPO in the US is just one of its latest manifestations.