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

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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

Published: 6:02pm, 10 Jan 2020Updated: 6:59pm, 16 Feb 2020

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.