(Yicai Global) April 16 -- Shares in Ucommune International surged as much as 14 percent yesterday after the loss-making Chinese shared workspace provider announced it had turned a profit in the fourth quarter last year, making money over the space of three months for the first time.

Ucommune [NASDAQ:UK] closed up 4.33 percent at USD2.41. Earlier in the day it had reached USD2.64.

Ucommune logged profit of CNY62.8 million (USD9.6 million) in the three months ended Dec. 31, the Beijing-based firm said in its first annual report since listing in New York last September.

This helped narrow its annual losses by 37 percent to CNY508 million (USD77.8 million). It will be welcome news to investors. The country’s largest coworking operator has lost over CNY1.3 billion (USD188.2 million) since 2017, as it invests heavily in rapidly expanding its network of shared workspaces.

The company is expecting revenue in the first quarter to be between CNY210 million and CNY230 million, it added. Revenue last year was down 25 percent year on year to CNY877 million (USD134.2 million).

Recently, Ucommune has introduced an asset-light structure to reduce some of its large outlays. Instead of renting office suites to renovate and then lease out, Ucommune will turn an office space into a co-working area and then share the rental proceeds with the property owner.

As of the end of last year, Ucommune had contracted 125 such spaces in 46 cities, doubling its managed area to 352,000 square meters from 2019. It had also committed to 234 office spaces on its own in 54 cities, 163 of which are operating, covering 650,000 square meters.

Since it was founded in April 2015, Ucommune has raised over USD4.7 billion through 19 rounds of financing. Backers include venture capital firms Sequoia Capital China and the ZhenFund.

Editor: Kim Taylor