Shanghai-based Chinese digital media and display advertising company Focus Media is planning an IPO in Hong Kong to raise as much as US$1 billion, according to media reports.
Focus Media is said to target the IPO for early next year, or the end of 2014.
Focus Media was taken private by an investor consortium and delisted from NASDAQ last May. The consortium includes Focus Media chairman and CEO Jason Nanchun Jiang, the Carlyle Group, FountainVest Partners, CITIC Capital China Partners, China Everbright Structured Investment Holdings, and Fosun International Ltd.
The privatization deal valued the company at US$3.7 billion.
If succeeded, Focus Media will be among the first of a long list of Chinese companies that have been taken private in the U.S. to list back in Asia.
Founded in 2003, Focus Media operates an advertising network in over 100 cities in China.
