NEW YORK • Sea's shares fell for the third day in a row and dropped below their initial public offering (IPO) price, a rocky start as a public company for the Singapore games start-up.
The company's stock slipped 9.9 per cent in New York trading on Wednesday to close at US$13.73.
The company sold shares to investors at US$15 and they rose 8.4 per cent on its first day of trading last week. Investors may be skittish about Sea's outlook, given heavy losses as chief executive officer Forrest Li expands beyond games into e-commerce and payments.
The firm's underwriters also pushed hard to raise US$884 million (S$1.2 billion), increasing the number of shares sold and lifting the price from an initial range of US$12 to US$14.
"By pricing above the range and upsizing the offer, they soaked up a lot of demand at the IPO," said Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Matthew Kanterman. "At this valuation, there're high expectations for Sea to show the street it can grow into its valuation and drive profitability on top of its past investments."
The company rose to a market capitalisation of US$5.2 billion last week, before dropping to US$4.5 billion. That still means gains for early backers such as Tencent Holdings, the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, Malaysia's sovereign wealth fund and several Asian billionaires.
Sea was founded by Mr Li as an online gaming company in 2009 and originally named Garena. He rebranded it to reflect its regional ambition and diversification.
Sea branched out with a digital payments service called AirPay in 2014 and the mobile shopping business Shopee in 2015.
Its games business, which retained the Garena name, still accounts for more than 90 per cent of total revenue.
Like Tencent, the company offers games for free, then collects money when players buy virtual items like armour, weapons or special skills. It makes money in e-commerce from commissions and advertising, while collecting fees from payments.
Sea has been viewed as something of a test case for start-ups from South-east Asia, including ride-hailing provider Grab, e-commerce site Tokopedia and travel provider Traveloka.
Goldman Sachs Group, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse Group led the public offering.
BLOOMBERG
