(Bloomberg) — Tencent Holdings Ltd. said it hasn’t bought shares in Didi Global Inc. since it went public, after a U.S. regulatory filing showing an increased stake sent shares of the Chinese ride-hailing company soaring almost 9%.
Tencent said in a filing Thursday it had added about 1.8 million Didi Class A ordinary shares to its last-known holdings. The social media giant subscribed to the additional stock during Didi’s initial public offering, which was not previously disclosed, a Tencent spokeswoman said Friday in an email. Tencent, which operates the WeChat messaging platform, had not acquired more stock in Didi since its debut in June, the spokesperson added.
Didi’s shares fell more than 5% in pre-market trading in New York. The Chinese company owned 78.85 million of Didi’s Class A shares as of Dec. 31, up from 77.07 million shares disclosed at the time of the IPO, the filing showed. Tencent’s Class A shareholding stood at 7.4% as of the end of December.
Didi has shed $47 billion of market value since Chinese regulators launched an investigation in July, citing data security concerns. Since then, Beijing has ordered the removal of more than two dozen Didi applications from app stores, initiated probes into its business practices and pressured the company to delist from New York.
Didi said in December that it has begun making preparations to withdraw from U.S. stock exchanges and pursue a listing in Hong Kong. It’s now aiming to file for a listing in the city around March, Bloomberg News has reported.
Read more: Didi Begins Plan for U.S. Delisting, Hong Kong Share Sale
(Updates with Didi’s share fall in the third paragraph. A previous version was corrected to specify Tencent’s previous shareholding.)
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