Tencent Music Entertainment Group will postpone its highly anticipated initial public offering because of the recent sell-off, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday citing people familiar with the deal.
The Journal reported that the company met with its underwriters this week, but sources said Tencent Music ultimately decided to push its debut back amid concerns that the sell-off would affect its pricing.
Stocks fell sharply Thursday with the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing more than 500 points lower, bringing its two-day losses to more than 1,300 points. Investors dumped equities around the globe amid concerns about rapidly rising interest rates, a possible global economic slowdown and overly ambitious tech valuations. The Nasdaq on Thursday became the first major benchmark to fall into correction territory.
Sources told the Journal that Tencent Music was originally set to kick off its roadshow next week and begin trading the following week. The Journal reported that the division now plans to wait until November.
The music arm of Chinese tech giant Tencent owns the four largest music apps in China and counts industry competitor Spotify as a backer. According to a prospectus filed earlier this month, Tencent Music plans on raising as much as $1 billion in what could be the largest U.S. IPO by a Chinese company since Alibaba raised over $20 billion in 2014.
Parent company Tencent owns 58 percent of the music division, while recently public Spotify owns 9 percent of shares.
Tencent did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Read the full report in The Wall Street Journal.
— CNBC’s Sara Salinas, Fred Imbert and Michael Sheetz contributed to this report.
