China's 21Vianet Aims For IPO Worth At Least $115 Million

Chinese data-center services provider 21Vianet Group Inc. is aiming for its initial public offering of American depositary shares to be worth at least $115 million, estimating an IPO of 11.5 million ADSs at a price between $10 and $12 each.

The company hosts customers' servers and networking equipment and provides interconnectivity that it says improves performance, availability and security of Internet infrastructure. It offers services to increase the speed and reliability of data across the Internet. 21Vianet revenue rose in both 2009 and 2010, but its loss widened last year on sharply higher overhead costs.

Competitor ChinaCache International Holdings Ltd. (CCIH) went public in the U.S. in October.

Many Chinese companies went public in the U.S. last year in the hope of cashing in on U.S. investor demand. In 2010, four of the five best IPO debuts on U.S. exchanges were Chinese stocks, although the opposite was also true: the five worst debuts were China-based companies as well.

With proceeds, it plans to invest in data-center and network infrastructure.

The company has applied to list its ADSs on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol VNET.

Each ADS represents six Class A ordinary shares. After the offering, the company would have about 314 million ordinary shares outstanding.