Bottom line: Meituan-Dianping’s IPO is likely to meet with lukewarm reception due to its big losses in several key areas, but could become more attractive over the medium term as it emerges as industry leader in one or two key areas.
Restaurant ratings leader takes IPO orders
As the rest of China continues to fixate on the sex scandal surrounding e-commerce giant JD.com’s (Nasdaq: JD) CEO, I thought I would end the week on a less controversial subject with a look at another blockbuster IPO by online-to-offline services giant Meituan-Dianping. The company has officially filed to make a listing in Hong Kong, and could be one of a growing number of Chinese Internet firms to choose the former British colony over the U.S. following a rule change earlier this year.
That change allowed companies to list in Hong Kong using a dual-class share structure that gives disproportionate voting power to company managers over ordinary shareholders. Previous prohibition of such a structure was the key element that led e-commerce giant Alibaba(NYSE: BABA) to make its own record-breaking IPO in New York instead of Hong Kong in 2014, and no doubt Hong Kong is still smarting over that loss. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Lackluster debuts for two of this year’s largest China IPOs in Hong Kong points to a cresting of the current new listing wave, with sentiment starting to wane as investor appetite for new choices gets satisfied.
China Tower, BeiGene in lackluster debuts
Two of the year’s biggest China IPOs have formally launched in Hong Kong this week, each with a different story and accompanying moral to tell. The larger of those, and the world’s largest IPO in the last two years, has seen state-run cellular tower operator China Tower (HKEx: 0788) raise nearly $8 billion, while the second has seen biotech firm BeiGene (HKEx: 6160; Nasdaq: BGNE) raise a smaller but still significant sum of nearly $1 billion.
These two listings are about as different as you could possibly ask for, at least in terms of the companies’ backgrounds. On the one hand China Tower is a big state-owned behemoth that was formed by the telecoms regulator a few tears ago by pooling the cellular toward assets of China’s big three telcos. At the other end of the spectrum, BeiGene is a privately-backed hotshot that develops biologically-based cancer-fighting drugs. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Live broadcasting specialists Inke and Huya should do well over the next year but could face difficulty after that as popularity of such services fades, while Xiaomi’s stock gains over the last two days look like a dead-cat bounce.
Inke goes live with strong trading debut
Following the unimpressive debut of smartphone maker Xiaomi(HKEx: 1810) earlier this week, live streaming site Inke (HKEx: 3700) is the latest high-tech listing in the headlines with a more impressive debut in Hong Kong. This latest deal follows the US listing for Huya (NYSE: HUYA), China’s first live streaming site to make an IPO, which has tripled since its New York IPO in May.
There are some mixed messages in here, perhaps indicating mixed investor sentiment towards many of these new-economy companies as investors try to separate the wheat from the chaff. If that’s the case, investors certainly seem to think that Huya and perhaps Yinke represent the wheat in the hot online streaming category. Meanwhile, they seem less certain about Xiaomi, which fizzled in its trading debut on Monday but has come bouncing back somewhat since then. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Xiaomi’s stock is likely to be volatile over the next year and could move broadly downward as investors wait to see if the company’s comeback has legs and it can move into higher-end products.
Xiaomi fizzles in trading debut
Smartphone maker Xiaomi(HKEx: 1810) seems to have become the proverbial lead zepplyn sinking further and further into the mire as it finally made its trading debut in Hong Kong. The company has been dogged by skepticism almost since the get-go of its blockbuster IPO, which ended this morning here in Asia with the stock’s official trading debut. The question from here now becomes: how far will the stock sink before it finds a bottom, and what are its real prospects over the mid- to longer-term?
Let’s jump right in with the news, which had Xiaomi shares dipping 2.3 percent when their long awaited trading began here in Hong Kong on Monday morning. The shares opened at HK$16.60, versus an IPO price of HK$17. Things didn’t get much better after that, and the stock was down to HK$16.36 the last time I checked midway through the morning session. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: New listing plans by used car platform operator Uxin, EV battery maker Amperex and medical device maker Mindray should all do well, driven by strong growth potential and their leading positions in China.
Bumper crop of new China IPOs headed to market
The latest IPO season for Chinese firms is kicking into high gear on both sides of the Pacific, with announcement of several hot new offerings that each has a slightly different story to tell. At the head of the class is a new listing for used car platform operator Uxin, which is aiming to raise up to $500 million in New York.
That’s followed by a listing plan for electric vehicle battery maker Amperex, which is having to settle for a sharply-lower valuation than it had been originally seeking with a listing in China. Last but not least there’s medical device maker Mindray, which de-listed from New York and has just submitted a plan to list on China’s enterprise-style ChiNext board, after its initial plan to re-list on one of China’s larger main boards was rejected. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Xiaomi is likely to quietly settle a copyright infringement lawsuit against it by Coolpad, which is opportunistically looking for some hush money before Xiaomi’s IPO and can’t afford a long drawn-out court battle.
Coolpad sues Xiaomi as latter’s IPO draws near
In a move that smells of desperation, down-and-out smartphone maker Coolpad (HKEx: 2369) has filed a lawsuit against the up-and-coming Xiaomi. Anyone with half a brain will know the timing of this lawsuit looks quite suspicious, since Xiaomi is getting ready to make what could be this year’s biggest IPO in the next month or so, likely to raise up to $20 billion.
It’s quite difficult to know if this particular lawsuit has any merit, though we do know that Coolpad was an early hot player in the smartphone space and thus may legitimately hold some intellectual property similar to things that Xiaomi is now using. But the fact of the matter is that Coolpad can hardly afford to wage a long and potentially costly legal battle. Instead, it is probably hoping for a quick settlement to give it some much-needed cash to continue funding its money-losing daily operations. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Xiaomi is hoping to attract investors to its IPO through its recent strong revenue growth, but it could still be years before it becomes profitable due to heavy reliance on low-end, low-margin products.
Xiaomi growth banks on cheap products
Everyone is fawning over the newly released IPO prospectus from Xiaomi, the smartphone maker that is aiming to make what’s likely to be the biggest listing of all time by a company from its class. Most eyes seem to be focused on the company’s top line, headlined by revenue that grew 67.5 percent last year. But from my perspective, the picture isn’t all that attractive due to the company’s huge loss, along with data that show it is clearly stuck at the lower end of the global smartphone market in terms of brand positioning.
None of that is necessarily that bad, since Xiaomi, whose upcoming Hong Kong IPO is likely to be one of this year’s largest, is clearly in an early stage of its development. Most major brands today didn’t start out as premium names. Classic cases in that category are the Japanese and Korean electronics makers, most of which started off as makers of low-end but relatively reliable cheap products that made the “made in Japan” label at one time the equivalent of the “made in China” label now. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Two biotech firms’ abandonment of New York IPOs for Hong Kong is part of a broader trend to make Hong Kong and China more competitive for high-growth startups, and could ultimately boost valuations in all three markets.
Pharma startups abandon New York for HK
We’ll take a break from all the trade war talk as we close out the week and instead turn to another major development taking place in Hong Kong, where the local stock exchange has just rolled out some reforms with major implications for high-growth startups. Those reforms have reportedly netted a couple of biotech firms that were originally planning to list in New York, reflecting a potential new rivalry between these two markets.
Before the reforms, Hong Kong’s stock exchange was quite traditional and also strict about a few things, including dual-class partnership structures and profitability. The former British colony refused to allow dual-class partnerships that gave disproportionate power to holders of a special class of preferential shares. At the same time, it also had strict rules saying all companies must show three consecutive years of profitability before listing. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Hong Kong-listed “Red chip” stocks like Lenovo and China Telecom could eventually make secondary listings in China under a new CDR program, but will be forced to wait behind higher-profile Internet names like Alibaba.
‘Red chips’ eye China listings under CDR program
With all of the major IPOs for the week now in the history books, as most of the world takes a vacation for Good Friday, I thought I’d close out the week here in China with yet another angle on the China Depositary Receipt (CDR) program that is creating lots of buzz. Regular readers will know this is a reference to China’s planned take on the popular American Depositary Receipt (ADR) program that lets companies with a primary listing in one market make secondary listings in another one.
Lots has been written these last couple of weeks about how the CDR program could let U.S.- and Hong Kong-listed tech giants like Alibaba(NYSE: BABA) and Tencent(HKEx: 700) make new secondary listings in China, which they couldn’t do before. But today we’re getting the first few peeps about similar homecomings from top executives of a group of Hong Kong-listed companies known as “red chips”, which are major Chinese firms that are currently barred from listing at home. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Bilibili and iQiyi are likely to price in the middle of their ranges and debut flat to up slightly when their IPO shares start trading this week in the US.
iQiyi, Bilibili set for weak debuts?
This week is shaping up as one of the busiest I can recall for New York IPOs by Chinese firms, with at least four major listings set to take place. The first of those sputtered out of the gate on Tuesday, with hotel operator Greentree (NYSE: GHG) dropping 7 percent in its trading debut after pricing weakly and slashing the size of its offering. That less-than-stellar showing comes just days after another non-tech offering fizzled with the new listing of education specialist Sunlands (NYSE: STG) late last week.
Those weak signals could bode poorly for the three more IPOs set to take place later this week, including a launch for online video sites Bilibili and iQiyi on Wednesday and Thursday, the latter of which could raise more than $2 billion. In between that pair will be another education firm, OneSmart, which is set to debut on Wednesday. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: iQiyi and Bilibili should price near the top of their higher IPO price ranges, as each benefits from strong investor sentiment fueled by their unique offerings and a potential new plan to concurrently list their shares in China.
iQiyi, Bilibili capitlize on strong positions in video
Anyone who was worried that a regulatory crackdown on fintechs late last year might dampen broader enthusiasm for Chinese stocks can relax. That’s my key takeaway from the latest headlines, which show that two non-fintech Internet firms are experiencing stronger-than-expected demand for their upcoming listings in New York.
Leading that charge is Baidu-backed (Nasdaq: BIDU) online video site iQiyi, which has sharply jacked up the fund-raising target for its proposed New York listing by a massive 80 percent, in what could well be the biggest such listing by a Chinese firm this year. At the same time, the smaller but similarly high-profile Bilibili has jacked up its own fund-raising target by a hefty 50 percent. Read Full Post…
