E-commerce giant JD raises US$3.9 bn in Hong Kong listing

HONG KONG (AFP) - Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com said yesterday it raised HK$30.1 billion (US$ 3.9 billion) in its Hong Kong initial public offering, making it the world’s second-biggest so far this year.

The bumper sale comes as Chinese companies eschew Wall Street because of rising tensions between Washington and Beijing.

Fellow Chinese tech giant NetEase raised US$ 2.7 billion in the city earlier this month, capping a frenetic few weeks on the stock exchange despite swirling fears over Beijing’s plan to impose a national security law on the finance hub.

JD.com, which listed on the Nasdaq in New York in 2014, priced its 133 million new shares at HK$ 226 each, the company said in a statement yesterday.

Trading in Hong Kong is expected to kick off on June 18.

It can also sell an additional 19.95 million new shares at the offer price as an over-allotment option, exercisable from June 11 until 30 days after. 

The JD.com IPO is the second-largest global offering this year after Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Railway raised US$ 4.3 billion in January, according to Bloomberg news.

The dual listing will help the company better compete with e-commerce rivals including Amazon and Chinese titan Alibaba, which raised a whopping US$ 12.9 billion in a secondary Hong Kong IPO last year.

While Hong Kong remains an attractive destination for listing, the city is in the midst of a recession and swirling political unrest, with pro-democracy protests raging on and off for the past year. 

Beijing has dismissed public anger as a foreign plot and has announced plans to impose an anti-subversion law on the city, which has some businesses worried that it may lose the autonomy from the mainland that has propelled its economic rise.

Beijing says the law will stabilise the city and reinforce confidence.