Shares of Chinese real-estate site operator SouFun soar 70 percent in IPO debut Friday

SouFun shares soar 70 pct in IPO debut

SAN FRANCISCO — Shares of SouFun Holdings Ltd. leaped more than 70 percent in their market debut Friday, well ahead of the price the Chinese real estate website operator set for its initial public offering.

The Beijing-based company’s American Depositary shares closed at $75.50. They had been priced a day earlier at $42.50 each. Shares slipped 55 cents to $72.95 in aftermarket trading.

China has been forced to put a clamp on construction to cool down a real estate market that has seen prices soar, giving listing sites like SouFun a lot of potential.

The website got nearly 10 million unique visitors per week last year, when the company had net income of $52.7 million and revenue of $127 million.

The IPO from SouFun Holdings Ltd. consists of 2.9 million ADS’s, each representing four Class A ordinary shares. Of that total, 1.8 million are being offered by Telstra International Holdings Ltd., nearly 247,000 by SouFun and the rest by other shareholders.

Deutsche Bank Securities and Goldman Sachs are underwriters of the offering.