The following press releases and news reports about China companies were carried on April 26. To view a full article or story, click on the link next to the headline.
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Bottom line: CICC and Jiuxian are benefiting from a growing number of domestic listing options for private Chinese companies, but both will still need to show they can be profitable industry leaders for investors to take them seriously.
Jiuxian finally debuts on China OTC
A couple of new IPOs are highlighting the growing allure of China’s increasingly diverse stock markets for domestic companies that used to flock to New York. Leading the headlines is a very respectable performance in the long-awaited Hong Kong trading debut for CICC (HKEx: 3908), China’s oldest investment bank. The strong debut came even after CICC had to scale back the offering due to weak demand, and market watchers are attributing the performance to separate news that China will resume domestic IPOs by year-end after a pause of several months.
In the other headline, online wine seller Jiuxian has become the latest Chinese Internet firm to list on the country’s 2-year-old over the counter (OTC) market. The loss-making Jiuxian had initially aimed to list in New York, but abandoned that plan for a simpler offering at home. It joined other money-losing startups making similar listings over the last week, including online classified ad site Baixing and Alibaba-backed (NYSE: BABA) soccer club Evergrande Taobao. (previous post) Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Shanghai will bid aggressively for Chinese tech firms to list on a new Nasdaq-style board planned for the city, while shares of companies privatizing from New York will continue to sag in sync with China’s stock market sell-off.
Soccer club eyes IPO on new Shanghai board
A new Shanghai-based Chinese board that aims to compete with Wall Street for new high-tech listings is moving closer to reality, with reports that Baidu’s (Nasdaq: BIDU) iQiyi online video service and Alibaba’s (NYSE: BABA) affiliated Ant Financial unit will be among the exchange’s inaugural listing candidates. A separate report also says that another Alibaba-affiliated company, soccer team Evergrande Taobao, will also list on the board, which is being referred to right now as the new strategic industries board.
Meantime in New York, the current week looks set to end with just a single privatization announcement for a US-listed Chinese firm, a sharp slowdown from the 20 earlier offers in the month of June. In this case the abrupt slowdown is at least partly due to the plunge in China’s stock markets this week, and we’re unlikely to see any more offers until the situation stabilizes. Read Full Post…
