Sept 17 (Reuters) - Chinese insurance broker Yuanbao on

Tuesday filed for an initial public offering in the United

States, signaling a broader recovery in investor appetite for

new listings.

WHY IT'S IMPORTANT

IPOs in the U.S. are experiencing a reasonably stronger year

after a prolonged dry spell as more companies test the market,

encouraged by the strong performance of high-profile listings

like Reddit ( RDDT ), alongside a rally in equities.

But, the number of IPOs by China-based companies in the U.S.

has come down significantly in the last several years, after

Beijing clamped down on offshore capital raising in 2021.

EV maker Zeekr's debut on the New York Stock Exchange

earlier this year was the first big listing by a Chinese company

in the U.S. since ride-hailing giant Didi Global was forced to

delist its shares in late 2021 following a backlash from Chinese

regulators.

CONTEXT

Yuanbao is an online insurance distributor in China, that

uses data and artificial intelligence to provide customizable

insurance plans to its customers.

The company is the largest independent insurance distributor

in China's personal life and accident and health (A&H) insurance

market in terms of first-year premiums in 2023, the company said

in its IPO filing.

Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and CICC are the lead underwriters

for the offering.

BY THE NUMBERS

Yuanbao's full-year revenue rose to 2.05 billion Chinese

yuan ($289.02 million) in 2023, compared to 850.3 million

Chinese yuan a year earlier, the company said.

The company's first-year premiums more than doubled to 17.6

billion Chinese yuan ($2.48 billion) in 2023, from 8.5 billion

Chinese yuan in the year-ago period.

WHAT'S NEXT

Yuanbao, which did not reveal the terms of its offering, is

planning to list American depositary shares (ADS) on the Nasdaq

under the ticker symbol "YB".

($1 = 7.0930 Chinese yuan renminbi)