Huatai's US$4.5b listing sees Hong Kong regain top spot in IPOs
Hong Kong has swept past New York to become world's No1 IPO market this year, thanks to the just-completed mega initial public offering of Huatai Securities.
"A total of 24 new listings on the Hong Kong stock exchange have raised a combined value of US$11.8 billion, with Hong Kong leading all global exchanges in new listing volume, ahead of New York (US$9.1 billion) and Shanghai (US$8.5 billion)," data provider Dealogic said on Tuesday.
Hong Kong had to settle for second place behind New York last year after Alibaba Group opted to list in that city in September, raising US$25 billion. The Hong Kong exchange refused to grant the mainland e-commerce giant an exemption that would have allowed it to list with a structure under which its founder Jack Ma Yun and certain key executives could nominate most of the board members despite holding only minority stakes.
Hong Kong last topped the IPO rankings from 2009 to 2011.
Huatai, the mainland's largest brokerage by trading volume, on Friday completed the biggest IPO in the city this year by raising US$4.5 billion - a haul that could give Hong Kong a good shot at beating New York and Shanghai for end-of-year fundraising honours.
"Hong Kong has the potential to maintain the No1 IPO market position to the end of this year," said Christopher Cheung Wah-fung, lawmaker and a broker. "There are a number of large securities firms and other big companies that have plans to list in the Hong Kong market in the following months due to the strong market sentiment. This will benefit the local IPO market," Cheung said.
Huatai's shares will debut in Hong Kong on Monday. The firm is also listed in Shanghai.
The market rally in both Hong Kong and Shanghai since April enabled Huatai to price at the high end of the offering range at HK$24.80 per share.
