Chinese online games portal seeks Nasdaq IPO

YY Inc, which runs a Chinese online games portal, plans to seek a Nasdaq initial public offering to raise up to $100 million, according to a filing it sent to the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Oct 15.

The company is one of the few that is trying to go public amid the weak global economic climate and investors' shrinking interest in Chinese stocks, which had their reputation recently tainted by fraud scandals.

YY Inc - which operates online games portal Duowan.com and audio chat software YY Client - said in the filing that its net revenue increased from 32.7 million yuan ($5.2 million) in 2009 to 319.7 million yuan in 2011.

It made profits in the three quarters ended on June 30, with its net profit going from 4 million yuan in the fourth quarter of last year to 17.3 million yuan in the second quarter of this year, it said.

Its YY software, which had 400 million registered users by September, had 84.2 percent of the online group audio chatting market, according to figures provided by domestic research company iResearch.

By the end of September, there were only two Chinese Internet companies that went public in the US - Vipshop Holdings Ltd issued its IPOs on the New York Stock Exchange in March, and the China Mobile Games and Entertainment Group debuted on the Nasdaq in September.

YY - which was founded in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, in 2005 by former journalist Li Xueling - named Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank Securities, Citigroup, Pacific Crest Securities and Piper Jaffray as its IPO underwriters.