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SCMP Editorial

Chinese battery giant Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) made a splash with its stock debut in Hong Kong this week by jumping more than 16 per cent.
Despite it being blacklisted by the US Defence Department, probed by Congress and caught in the middle of a worldwide trade war, investors could not hold off their enthusiasm for a firm that supplies international carmakers such as Tesla, Mercedes and Volkswagen.
Interestingly, the offering under a US regulation meant American investors were barred from taking part in the IPO, thus being left out of a bonanza that raised US$5.24 billion for the company based in Ningde, Fujian province.
CATL’s debut is the world’s biggest listing so far this year, and propelled Hong Kong back to the top spot in global equities fundraising.
Investors large and small, retail and institutional, were enticed by the allure of a firm at the global forefront of electric vehicle (EV) technology.
CATL projects that half of all new trucks sold in China will be electric-powered by 2028, compared with 14 per cent of trucks sold domestically that were either plug-in hybrids, fully electric or hydrogen-powered, in the first quarter of this year.
CATL takes up about 37 per cent of the world’s EV and energy storage battery market, though it derives 70 per cent of revenue from domestic sales.


The Pentagon has blacklisted it for being a supplier to the People’s Liberation Army. However, at a time when so-called US stock exceptionalism has gone up in smoke with Donald Trump’s erratic tariffs, international investors are showing renewed interest in high-quality Chinese companies.
Those who took part in the CATL IPO included Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund worth more than US$1 trillion, and the Italian industrial dynasty, the Agnelli family.
CATL was first listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2018. But it is using the Hong Kong listing to branch out internationally.
It said 90 per cent of the IPO proceeds would be used to develop its first European plant in Hungary, where BYD, the world’s biggest maker of electric vehicles, is also launching its EV production facility.
The city’s IPO market is picking up fast. Taking advantage of favourable market sentiments, FWD Group Holdings, the insurer backed by tycoon Richard Li Tzar-kai, has filed for an IPO, its third attempt at a listing, but without an exact timeline.
Investors will be focusing on the soon-to-debut Shanghai-listed Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals, Mirxes Holding, a biotech start-up from Singapore, and IFBH Limited, a Thai company incorporated in Singapore that is the world’s second-largest bottler of coconut water.
The IPO market is roaring back, despite the trade war. The authorities must seize the upbeat market sentiment to speed up IPOs as geopolitical uncertainties will not go away any time soon.


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Hong Kong economy

CATL’s debut a sign that Hong Kong’s IPO market is roaring back

Representatives of CATL are seen at the company’s listing ceremony at the HKEX Connect Hall in Central. Photo: Sun Yeung

Opinion

The world’s biggest listing so far this year has propelled the city back to the top spot in global equities fundraising


The world’s biggest listing so far this year has propelled the city back to the top spot in global equities fundraising.


Hungary

Kuwait

Hong Kong

United States

Richard Li Tzar-kai

Stocks

Electric & new energy vehicles

US-China trade war

US-China trade war: All stories

US-China tech war

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


Column

Editorial

CATL’s debut a sign that Hong Kong’s IPO market is roaring back

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The world’s biggest listing so far this year has propelled the city back to the top spot in global equities fundraising

The world’s biggest listing so far this year has propelled the city back to the top spot in global equities fundraising