hong kongsingapore jan 25 reuters  chinese fashion retailer shein is reviving plans to list in new york this year and its founder is considering a citizenship change to bypass proposed tougher rules for offshore ipos in china two people familiar with the matter said it was not immediately clear how much the company was looking to raise from its new york debut the initial public offering ipo if finalised would be the first major equity deal by a chinese company in the united states since regulators in the worlds secondlargest economy stepped in to tighten oversight of such listings in july shein founded by chinese entrepreneur chris xu in 2008 first started preparing for a us ipo about two years ago but shelved the plan partly due to unpredictable markets amid rising uschina tensions the sources said both sources declined to be named as the plans are confidential a shein spokesperson said the company had no plans to go public the nanjingbased company is one of the worlds largest online fashion marketplaces targeting overseas consumers the united states is its biggest market the sources said shein founder xu was eyeing singapore citizenship partly to bypass chinas new and tougher rules on overseas listings the change in citizenship if applied for and successful would ease the path to an offshore ipo they said neither xu nor other shein executives have applied for singaporean citizenship the company spokesperson said without elaborating xu did not respond to reuters queries sent via this spokesperson new rules issued by chinas cyberspace administration and the offshore listing filing regime to be finalised by chinas securities regulator are set to make a us listing process for chinese firms more complicated if not lengthier the securities regulators draft rules for offshore listings targets companies where a majority of senior management are either chinese citizens or reside in china or whose main business activities are conducted in china shein ships to 150 countries and territories from its many global warehouses according to its website it made around 100 billion yuan 157 billion in revenue in 2021 taking advantage of the pandemic that shifted global consumption online said one of the sources and another person with knowledge of the matter its valuation was around 50 billion in early 2021 they said the valuation is estimated to have as much as doubled in the past year one of the first two sources said the company whose investors include sequoia capital china idg capital and tiger global was valued at 15 billion in its last funding round in august 2020 according to cb insights data according to coresight research sheins estimated sales in 2020 jumped 250 over the preceding year to 10 billion with over 2000 items added on its website weekly the shein spokesperson said as a private company it did not disclose financial figures shein has hired bank of america bacn goldman sachs gsn and jpmorgan jpmn to work on the ipo said the source with knowledge of the companys valuation and another person familiar with the matter reporting by kane wu and scott murdoch in hong kong and fanny potkin in singapore additional reporting by sophie yu in beijing editing by sumeet chatterjee and stephen coates