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Chinese Didi to be Delisted on the New York Stock Exchange


With 377 million annual active users in China and serving in 16 other countries, Didi Chuxing was celebrated as a local technology champion in China. It defeated its American rival Uber and acquired that company’s Chinese operations in 2016. The promise to use data banks to streamline traffic and develop self-driving car technologies has made its executives iconic as Chinese officials have called for building a more innovative economy.

Delisting is likely to raise investor concerns about what it looks like. Increasing hostility from Chinese officials for domestic companies that list shares on foreign exchanges. China’s taming of the internet giants picked up pace last year after regulators blocked the IPO of fintech giant and Alibaba sister company Ant Group.

Like Didi, Ant went ahead with a stock listing despite a history of regulatory concerns. Other firms, which may have viewed the United States’ hot stock market as an easy way to raise money, are now likely to settle with China’s capital markets.

The sudden pressure on Didi from Beijing has rattled the company’s new Wall Street shareholders. A listing on Wall Street, like Alibaba’s record-breaking listing in 2014, was once seen as the ultimate confirmation of a company’s business successes in China. Since its blockbuster IPO this summer, Didi’s share price has roughly halved.

In a series of rebukes against Didi, Chinese regulators followed the megabucks list with a few regulatory slaps. Worried that the listing could transfer Didi’s sensitive data about Chinese riders to the United States, regulators forced the company to stop registering new users as they began a cybersecurity review of their app two days after the IPO.

Shortly after, authorities ordered that downloads of Didi’s main consumer app be halted before expanding the barrier to 25 more of the company’s apps, including the car pool app, finance app, and app for corporate customers. At the time, he said the suspensions were due to elaboration, problems with the collection and use of personal data.

Even before being listed, Didi was forced to avoid regulatory scrutiny. At the end of March, regulators in the southern city of Guangzhou ordered it and nine other companies to compete fairly and not use consumers’ personal data to charge higher prices.



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