Source:
https://scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3045587/chinas-ctrip-said-tap-banks-follow-alibaba-hong-kong-listing
Tech/ Big Tech

China’s Ctrip said to tap banks to follow Alibaba with Hong Kong listing

  • Shanghai-based Ctrip plans to sell at least 10 per cent of its shares as early as the first half of this year
A sign for online travel services provider Ctrip is displayed outside the Sky Soho Building, which hosts the company's headquarters in Shanghai. Photo: Bloomberg

US-traded online travel giant Ctrip is talking to banks about a planned secondary listing in Hong Kong, putting the group at the head of a queue of Chinese companies expected to follow Alibaba Group Holding in establishing an investor base closer to China.

Ctrip, also known as Trip.com Group, has approached China International Capital Corp (CICC), JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley for its planned share sale in Hong Kong, according to four people with knowledge of the matter.

Ctrip, which had declined to comment earlier, late on Friday said: “The specific details of the listing reported are not true. The company does not have plans yet for a secondary listing.” CICC, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley declined to comment.

China’s largest online travel firm plans to sell at least 10 per cent of its shares as early as the first half of this year, said two of the people who declined to be named because the information was private.

Based on Ctrip’s latest market value of US$20.6 billion on Nasdaq, that would help it to raise at least US$2 billion. But the sources said the deal was still in the early stages and the details were subject to change.

The move comes weeks after the successful US$12.9 billion secondary listing of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba in Hong Kong in November, which was the city’s largest deal since 2010 and the world’s biggest ever cross-border secondary listing. Alibaba is the parent company of the South China Morning Post.

Charles Li Xiaojia, chief executive of bourse operator Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing (HKEX), said this week at a Reuters Breakingviews event that he was confident more US-listed companies would follow Alibaba.

“I think just by their nature they will come, because their customers know them and they will potentially get a better valuation re-rate if your customer know your business and wants to become your shareholder,” said Li, who indicated that adding Chinese shareholders could help to balance US investor views.

“A different shareholder base means that you are hedged because the Chinese are going to look at the world very differently from the western investors, and as a company you want people to have different views,” he said.

Co-founded in 1999 by Chinese businessman James Liang Jianzhang, Ctrip first went public on Nasdaq in 2003, as part of an early wave of Chinese technology companies lured by high valuations overseas, at a time when domestic markets were a fraction of their current size.

Both the HKEX and its mainland Chinese counterparts have been trying to coax such companies to their home markets to give Chinese investors access to these fast-growing businesses that have traditionally opted to list in New York.

Apart from Ctrip, US-listed Chinese tech companies, including NetEase and Baidu, have also had preliminary discussions with the HKEX about the possibility of a secondary listing in Hong Kong, said a separate person with direct knowledge of the matter.

Baidu and the HKEX declined to comment. NetEase did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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