China's Sunlands Online Education Group debuts on NYSE

NEW YORK, March 23 (Xinhua) -- Sunlands Online Education Group, a provider of online courses for degree-equivalent exams in China, rang the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) opening bell on Friday in celebration of its Initial Public Offerings.

Sunlands, trading under the ticker symbol of "STG", priced its IPO of 13 million American Depositary Shares at 11.50 U.S. dollars, well at the low end of the planned 11.50 to 13.50 U.S. dollars per share range.

Goldman Sachs (Asia), J.P. Morgan and Credit Suisse are the joint bookrunners on the deal.

Shares of Sunlands dropped 3.48 percent to close at 11.10 U.S. dollars apiece on Friday. All three major indices declined on the day, with the Dow plummeting more than 400 points to close 1.77 percent lower at 23,533.20.

Tongbo Liu, CEO of Sunlands, told Xinhua on Friday that the company has been focusing on cultivating a personalized, interactive learning platform by featuring a virtual learning community.

He noted that about 40 percent of the money raised will be used in IT infrastructure, including hiring more engineers. The rest of the money will be used in content building, advertising and outside investments, he added. Enditem