中国互联网平台新浪微博计划赴美上市

The FT's Josh Noble has brought us a scoop: Chinese internet platform Sina has picked banks for a spin-out of its Twitter-like micro-blogging service Weibo, the latest in a rash of high-profile deals in the tech sector.

中国互联网平台(Sina)已经为其类Twitter微博客服务新浪微博(Weibo)的剥离上市事宜挑选了承销行。这是技术行业一系列重大交易的最新一起。

The company has hired Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse to manage the New York listing, according to two people familiar with the matter.

据两位知情人士表示，新浪已聘请高盛(Goldman Sachs)和瑞信(Credit Suisse)安排微博在纽约上市事宜。

Sina is looking to raise about $500m through the deal, which is expected to complete in the second quarter.

新浪拟通过此次上市筹集约5亿美元。交易预计将在二季度完成。

Last year Alibaba, China's dominant ecommerce platform, paid $586m for an 18 per cent stake in Weibo, valuing the group at $3.3bn.

去年，中国头号电子商务平台阿里巴巴(Alibaba)斥5.86亿美元收购新浪微博18%的股份，它对新浪微博的估值为33亿美元。

However, since then, Sina's share price has risen by about one-third, suggesting that Weibo could be worth more than $4bn.

但之后，新浪股价上涨了约三分之一，这意味着新浪微博估值可能超过40亿美元。

Sina is due to report its fourth quarter earnings after the close of trading on Monday in New York.

新浪将在纽约周一收盘后公布去年四季度盈利报告。

Internet stocks have been a bright spot for investors looking to build China exposure in the past year. Tencent, which owns a Whatsapp-like messaging system called WeChat, has seen its shares more than double in the past 12 months.

去年，互联网股票成为投资者投资中国的焦点。拥有类Whatsapp消息应用微信(WeChat)的腾讯(Tencent)过去12个月股价上涨了一倍还多。

The listing comes at a tricky time for Weibo. Active users of microblogs in China fell by a tenth between 2017 and 2013, according to a recent report by a government-affiliated research group.

宣布上市的时间对新浪微博十分尴尬。一家中国政府下属的研究机构最近发布的一份报告称，与2017年相比2013年新浪微博的活跃用户数下降了10%。

Censorship has played an important role in that reversal. The Chinese government has cracked down on outspoken bloggers, known as “Big Vs” for the verification sign on their user profiles. Weibo has also faced increased competition from Tencent’s WeChat app.

这一下跌与中国的审查也有关。中国政府已经打压了新浪微博上的直言不讳的大V们，同时新浪微博也面临着来自腾讯微信的日益激烈的竞争。

Other social media companies have also run into trouble recently. Shares in Twitter were hit earlier this month after it reported less than 4 per cent growth in user numbers during the fourth quarter. LinkedIn also fell sharply after it gave a subdued outlook for 2017 during its earnings report.

其他社交媒体企业最近也麻烦不断。本月初Twitter公布了去年四季度用户数增长不到4%的消息后，股价受挫。对2017年LinkedIn收益的谨慎预期也使得其股价大跌。

Sina said it did not comment on market rumours. Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse both declined to comment.

新浪表示不会对市场传言作出评论，高盛和瑞银也未予置评。

Additional reporting by Sarah Mishkin in San Francisco and Arash Massoudi in New York

莎拉•米西金旧金山、阿尔什•马苏迪纽约补充报道