ZTO, year's biggest US IPO with $1.4b

A man unloads parcels from a ZTO Express delivery vehicle in Beijing. [Photo/Agencies]

ZTO Express Inc, the Chinese delivery service that gets about three-quarters of its business from Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, is following its top customer to the US stock market with what is set to be this year's biggest initial public offering in the country.

The company has been seeking as much as $1.3 billion in the sale, which would also be the most a Chinese company raised in New York since Alibaba's record $25 billion offering in 2014.

The deal may mark an inflection point after a string of mainland companies have sought to abandon their US listings and move trading back home, where stocks are commanding higher multiples.

ZTO is set to raise $1.4 billion after pricing the offering above the top end of a marketed range, Reuters reported on Wednesday in New York. It sold 72.1 million US depositary shares at $19.50 apiece, according to the report, which cited an unidentified person.

Zhang Jianfeng, ZTO's vice-president of public relations, said by phone he's not aware of the latest information.

It will also test US investor demand at a time when others are going public through reverse mergers, or backdoor listings, on the Shenzhen exchange.

Such deals－when a private firm purchases a public "shell" to take over its listing－have proliferated in China as the regulator made it difficult for companies to gain approval for IPOs in Shanghai.

The waiting list for new mainland equity offering approvals exceeds 800, more than mainland's total listings over the last five years, according to the China Securities Regulatory Commission website and data compiled by Bloomberg.

Bloomberg