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By Xie Fang

Meituan Dianping, China's largest online local life service platform, kicked off the process of share offering in Hong Kong on Friday, the China Securities Journal reported.

The process will continue until Sept. 12. Afterwards, the company is scheduled to make its debut at the Hong Kong Exchanges (HKEX) on Sept. 20.

The company disclosed at a news conference held in Hong Kong Thursday that it planned to sell 4.8 million B-shares at a share price ranging from HKD 60 (USD 7.64) to HKD 72 (USD 9.17). Based on a median share price of HKD 66, the company expects to raise up to HKD 31.12 billion (USD 3.97 billion).

A week before its share offering, the company announced its five cornerstone investors including the Chinese Internet giant Tencent and four other fund companies, which would buy roughly USD 1.5 billion worth of its shares.

"Given that one in every four Chinese consumers has spent money on the platform, Meituan Dianping has become China's largest online takeout ordering platform," said Wang Xing, founder and CEO of the company, at the news conference.

Wang noted that with "Food+Platform" as its core strategy, the company has successfully turned its business into an online-offline closed loop by extending its services from takeout delivery to travel service, entertainment as well as shopping.

The company's prospectus shows that a total of 5.8 billion transactions had been conducted on the platform last year, with the overall transaction volume hitting 357 billion yuan (USD 52.22 billion).

Despite such a huge transaction volume, the company has been at a loss over the past three years, a fact which has raised concern among potential investors.

According to the company, the funds raised through the share offering will be used to improve its innovation capability, develop new services and products, and buy assets and businesses which are in line with its current market strategy.