Chinese phone maker Xiaomi is finally gearing up to go public and has raised close to $4.7 billion (HK$37 billion) in its much-awaited Hong Kong IPO. It has priced the shares at the lower-end of the marketed offer range, according to Bloomberg, but that’s lackluster when compared to the company’s fundraising ambitions.
Xiaomi had opened its IPO for Hong Kong investors earlier this week, offering a whopping 2.18 billion shares in the HK$17 to HK$22 per share price range.
The company has, however, picked the $HK17 lower-end of the price range for the listing, which values Xiaomi at around $54 billion, which is roughly half than what it was initially gunning for with its IPO. It was speculated that Xiaomi may be raising money at a $100 billion valuation but that didn’t pan out.
Xiaomi’s listing will go down in history as the biggest and first major tech IPO listing on the Hong Kong Exchange since the city changed its rules to not allow company founders to have an unfair hold over the voting rights. This will be the largest tech IPO since Alibaba, who raised a whopping $25 billion in New York back in 2014.
Bloomberg has added that billionaire George Soros and Chinese investment firm Hillhouse Capital have invested in this IPO. But, they’re not the only ones. A report from the SCMP further makes this IPO a lot more exciting as three of China’s tycoons, namely Li Ka-shing of CK Hutchison Holdings, Alibaba’s Jack Ma, and Tencent founder Pony Ma Huateng – have also invested in Xiaomi in their own capacity.
And then, there are the seven cornerstone investors including China Mobile, Qualcomm, and other, who will have to lock up the shares for 6 months before deciding to sell them off.
Xiaomi’s listing on the main board of the Hong Kong stock exchange is scheduled for July 9, which would be a test of the sensitive city’s stock market. The Hang Seng index has already tumbled more than 6.5% this month and 4.8% in total this year. So, the question now is – how will Xiaomi’s listing fare under such market conditions?
