By Clare Baldwin
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Shares of Chinese online real estate website SouFun Holdings Ltd
Shares of the Beijing-based company opened at $67, 57.6 percent above their IPO price, then added to gains to trade at $69.68 in late morning on the New York Stock Exchange.
"SouFun operates one of the largest real estate portals in China," said Morningstar IPO analyst Michael Gaiden. "It's a wide open growth opportunity."
SouFun sells real estate-related marketing and listing services. As of June 30 it covered 106 Chinese cities, according to its prospectus.
SouFun has posted sequential increases in its total revenue and net income attributable to shareholders in each of the past five years. It posted net income attributable to shareholders of $5.3 million on total revenue of $68.2 million in the six months ended June 30.
But even with its strong growth prospects, SouFun faces stiff competition. It competes against top-ranked China Real Estate Information Corp
SouFun could also be hurt by China's efforts to cool its red-hot property sector.
SouFun is 51 percent-owned by Australian phone company Telstra
SouFun on Thursday sold 2.9 million American Depositary Shares for $42.50 each, raising $124.7 million. It had planned to sell shares for $40.50 to $42.50 each. The shares are trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "SFUN."
Underwriters were led by Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs.
(Reporting by Clare Baldwin, editing by Dave Zimmerman.)
