Didi planning to delist US shares in move to Hong Kong

The company has faced pressure since listing on Wall Street, with Beijing authorities announcing a crackdown on overseas listings for technology companies in July, days after its initial public offering.

On Thursday, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) turned the screws further, revealing its final plans to force foreign companies to open their accounts to American scrutiny, or be booted from the NYSE and Nasdaq exchanges.

“Following careful research, the company will immediately start delisting on the New York stock exchange and start preparations for listing in Hong Kong,” Didi said in a statement on the Chinese social network Sina Weibo on Friday.

In a separate statement released in English, the company said it would organise a shareholder meeting to vote on the matter “at an appropriate time in the future, following necessary procedures”.

Didi, which has been compared to Uber in its taxi-booking, ride-hailing, car-pooling and delivery service offerings, raised $4.4bn in its US IPO at the end of June.

Despite its mammoth valuation, trading was initially muted as tensions between Washington and Beijing around tech regulation played out.

Japanese cellular and technology conglomerate SoftBank Group is the largest single shareholder of Didi Chuxing with a stake of over 20%, while the company also counts peers in the Chinese tech sector Alibaba and Tencent among its investors.

Uber also owns a stake in Didi, after the latter took over Uber China in 2016.