Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing Inc. expects to raise as much as $4 billion in its New York Stock Exchange debut, setting it up for what is likely to be the biggest U.S. initial public offering (IPO) this year.

The offerings point to a valuation of more than $60 billion. The company set a price range of between $13 and $14 per American Depositary Share (ADS) and said it would offer 288 million such shares in its IPO, according to a regulatory filing on Thursday. 

Prospectus for the company suggests a conservative approach. It had at one point been in talks to raise as much as $10 billion at a valuation of nearly $100 billion.

The listing, filed under the business name Xiaoju Kuaizhi Inc., will be one of the biggest share sales by any Chinese company in the United States since Alibaba raised $25 billion in 2014.

Chinese companies raised $12 billion from U.S. listings in 2020, more than triple the fundraising amount in 2019, Refinitiv data showed. This year, the raise from Chinese floats on U.S. exchanges is expected to comfortably surpass last year's tally.

Regulatory scrutiny

Chinese regulators have ramped up antitrust scrutiny on tech platform companies for the likes of Alibaba, Tencent and Didi Chuxing. 

Didi was fined in late April for violating anti-monopoly rules in mergers and acquisitions deals it made without seeking regulatory approval in advance.

It cited ongoing tensions between China and the U.S. and the possibility of action over antitrust regulations among ongoing risks for its business.

Didi became the top online ride-hailing business in China after market-share battles with Alibaba-backed Kuaidi and Silicon Valley-based Uber's China unit. It won a costly turf war against Uber and took over its local unit in 2016. The U.S. firm now owns a 12.8 percent stake in Didi, according to the IPO filings.

Excluding China, Didi operates in 15 countries and has more than 493 million annual active users globally.

Goldman Sachs (Asia), Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan are the lead underwriters.

Didi added more than a dozen new ones on Thursday, including BofA Securities, Barclays, China Renaissance, Citigroup, HSBC and UBS Investment Bank.

(With input from Reuters)