Hong Kong retail investors give Xiaomi’s IPO the cold shoulder, put off by high financing cost and valuation
Anecdotal evidence from four of the city’s biggest retail brokers indicated that the portion bought by individual investors exceeded their allocations by a combined 33 per cent on the first day of offer
Xiaomi’s US$6.1 billion initial public offering was subscribed to by Li Ka-shing, Jack Ma Yun and Pony Ma Huateng, but given the cold shoulder by most of Hong Kong’s retail investors, an ominous sign for the city’s bellwether fundraising attempt of 2018.
Anecdotal evidence from four of the city’s biggest retail brokers indicated that the portion bought by individual investors exceeded their allocations by a combined 33 per cent on the first day of offer, in stark contrast to the oversubscriptions recorded by Ping An Healthcare & Technology, China Literature and ZhongAn Online. A total of 109 million Xiaomi shares would be offered to retail investors over four days.
At Bright Smart Securities, only HK$1.3 billion of shares, or 3 per cent of its reserved quota, was subscribed to as of Monday evening.
The initial reception by retail investors was “worse than for Ping An Good Doctor, not to mention the record-breaking rush for China Literature,” said the brokerage firm’s chief executive Edmond Hui Yik-bun.
Xiaomi, the world’s fourth-largest smartphone maker, has picked a challenging time to raise funds in Hong Kong, as the cost of money measured by the one-month interbank offer rate, or hibor, soared to a 10-year high of 2.125 per cent.