Cash-hungry mainland companies are racing to tap Hong Kong's equity market amid rising volatility and investors shunning risky assets.
Shoemaker Active Group Holdings, which has been selling new shares to fund expansion on the mainland, got just 523 valid applications from the public for its offering.
The company, which makes casual footwear for men, priced its initial public offering at HK$1.20 a share - the bottom of the range - to raise a total of HK$337.4 million, according to a stock exchange statement issued yesterday. The public portion of Active Group's IPO was just 1.07 times oversubscribed.
Retail response to another shoemaker, Hongguo International Holdings, which joined the Hong Kong stock exchange last week, was also lukewarm.
The public portion of the company's IPO, which raised HK$622.3 million, was undersubscribed.
Analysts said investors had lost interest in IPOs lately as the stock market was swamped with discounted shares following a series of sell-offs, rendering new companies with no track records unappealing.
