Less than a year after Didi Global Inc.
DIDI 0.33%
the Chinese stock-selling giant said its shareholders approved its plan to delist from the New York Stock Exchange, completing a regulatory roller coaster rocket, causing its market value to fall sharply.
The move will allow the company to move forward after it was seized by Beijing’s company to tighten control over Chinese technology giants and their data treasures. Didi told shareholders he needed to be removed from the list before he could resolve a cybersecurity investigation in China.
About 96% of shareholders who voted at Monday’s meeting supported the delisting proposal, the company said. A May 11 statement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said founders Didi Will Chen and Zhang Liu had indicated they intended to vote “yes” on the basis of one vote per share.
The company said in a separate statement that it had notified the NYSE of its intention and plans to file a delisting notice with the SEC on June 2 or thereafter. Trading in its shares will stop in 10 days.
On Monday, Didi cited his May statement, which said it would not apply to list its shares on another exchange until a cybersecurity review and any “corrective action” were completed.
It claims that investors can trade stocks without a counter, but it says that the development of such a market is beyond the control of the company, and warns that investors may be stuck with stocks without “impossible funds to recoup any significant part” of their investment .
Didi’s U.S. depositary receipts fell from their initial public offering of $ 14 less than a year ago, burdening many U.S. investors with big losses.
Didi shares began trading on June 30 after the company sold $ 4.4 billion worth of shares in an IPO. A few days later, Chinese regulators began checking the company’s data infrastructure, ordered the suspension of new user registration and forced the removal of some popular applications, which affected its core business in China. The inspection continues.
New York’s ADRs traded at $ 1.55 a share on Monday, up 3% from Friday’s close.
In December, Didi said it plans to exclude its shares in the U.S. and continue listing in Hong Kong. Since then, the company has said it must pass a cybersecurity check before applying to restore its apps in China and re-register new users.
Last month, Didi said its fourth-quarter revenue was down 12.7% from a year earlier.
Didi’s ordeal came amid a long-running dispute between Washington and Beijing over auditing standards. China has found some information about the company too sensitive for national security to fall into the wrong hands. For companies like Didi, this category may include data, including traffic flows or geographic information.
Meanwhile, the SEC requires companies to submit their audit working papers, which may contain raw data, including user information and communications between companies and government agencies, to the U.S. regulatory inspectorate for three consecutive years, threatening to remove companies from U.S. exchanges if they will not. ‘t.
In May, the SEC said more than 100 Chinese companies, including Didi, had been identified as possible delisting from U.S. stock exchanges, saying their audit documents did not meet U.S. audit standards.
China’s securities regulator said Didi’s decision to withdraw from the US market was an independent decision by the company, which has nothing to do with other Chinese stocks listed in the US. China’s Securities Regulatory Commission said in April that Didi’s decision was not related to discussions between the two countries on audit requirements.
Write Shen Lu at shen.lu@wsj.com
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