Earlier this morning, Reuters reported that the popular Didi Chuxing Chinese ride service was eying a US initial public offering with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley leading the effort. Now it’s come to light that the company has allegedly already confidentially filed for the IPO. Notably, Apple invested $1 billion in Didi back in 2016 which also gave it a seat on the ride service’s board.
Earlier this morning, Reuters reported that Didi was expected to file privately for its IPO sometime this month. However, it looks like that may have already occurred as tweeted by ZeroHedge.
Along with Apple’s $1 billion investment into Didi, the ride service giant’s major backers are SoftBank, Alibaba, and Tencent. For its IPO, Didi is said to be looking at a $100 billion valuation.
Back in 2017, Apple CEO Tim Cook explained it was investing in Didi as “a chance to learn more about certain segments of the China market,” while also holding the belief that Didi has the potential to eliminate traffic jams. The move will no doubt turn out to be quite lucrative for Apple as well.
And connecting the dots looking back, with Apple Car plans possibly including a robo-taxi service, the company may have been able to learn a lot of valuable knowledge from its involvement with Didi over the last six years that it could leverage in a future ride service.
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