BIDU Baidu Inc

By Austen Hufford 

The Netflix-like, video-streaming unit of Chinese search-engine giant Baidu Inc. priced its U.S. initial public offering Thursday, setting the company up to raise $2.25 billion.

IQiyi Inc. said Thursday that its IPO of 125 million American depositary shares priced at $18 a share. The IPO priced at the midpoint of its $17 to $19 marketed range.

The unprofitable company has been looking to raise money to stay ahead in the competitive Chinese video-streaming sector where tech titans Tencent Holdings Ltd. and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. also have offerings. It plans to spend half of the proceeds raised from the IPO to "expand and enhance" its content offerings, according to a securities filing.

IQiyi, founded in 2010, said it is China's largest video-streaming service by amount of time spent watching. IQiyi reported 60.1 million subscribers as of Feb. 28, roughly 59 million of whom pay for the service.

Shares are set to begin trading Thursday on the Nasdaq Global Market under the ticker IQ.

Underwriters of the offering could also purchase up to 18.8 million iQiyi shares.

Alyssa Abkowitz contributed to this report

Write to Austen Hufford at austen.hufford@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 29, 2018 09:15 ET (13:15 GMT)

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