Online fast fashion shop Shein planning New York IPO as founder weighs citizenship change amid tighter regulations
- Shein founder Chris Xu is considering Singapore citizenship to get around new rules in China restricting offshore IPOs
- The US is the biggest market for the e-commerce company, which saw its valuation balloon to US$50 billion last year amid the pandemic
Chinese fashion retailer Shein is reviving plans to list in New York this year and its founder is considering a citizenship change to bypass proposed tougher rules for offshore IPOs in China, two people familiar with the matter said.
It was not immediately clear how much the company was looking to raise from its New York debut.
The initial public offering, if finalised, would be the first major equity deal by a Chinese company in the United States since regulators in the world’s second-largest economy stepped in to tighten oversight of such listings in July.
Shein, founded by Chinese entrepreneur Chris Xu in 2008, first started preparing for a US IPO about two years ago, but shelved the plan partly due to unpredictable markets amid rising US-China tensions, the sources said.
Both sources declined to be named as the plans are confidential. A Shein spokesperson said the company had no plans to go public.
The Nanjing-based company is one of the world’s largest online fashion marketplaces targeting overseas consumers. The United States is its biggest market.
The sources said Shein founder Xu was eyeing Singapore citizenship partly to bypass China’s new and tougher rules on overseas listings. The change in citizenship, if applied for and successful, would ease the path to an offshore IPO, they said.
Neither Xu nor other Shein executives have applied for Singaporean citizenship, the company spokesperson said, without elaborating. Xu did not respond to Reuters queries sent via this spokesperson.