Chinese ecommerce giant JD.com has confidentially filed for a secondary listing in Hong Kong, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
The listing, which might help the company raise at least US$2 billion, could come as early as the second half of the year, one of the sources said. The size of the deal, however, has yet to be decided because details are still in discussion.
Photo credit: Daniel Cukier
According to Bloomberg, JD.com’s potential Hong Kong listing could narrow its gap in market value with global peers like Amazon and Alibaba. The Beijing-based company, which is listed on Nasdaq, is valued at around US$64 billion.
The report comes as global businesses are negatively affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. However, Bloomberg noted that JD.com is still seeing increased demand from smaller Chinese cities. Its model, based on direct-to-customer sales and in-house logistics, may lead to a better performance than its peers that connect merchants with customers, said the report.
Late last year, Chinese internet giant Alibaba Group raised US$12.9 billion in its secondary listing in Hong Kong. Alibaba went to the US in 2014 for its initial public offering because Hong Kong didn’t allow dual-class shares at the time.
In 2018, Hong Kong relaxed its policy and allowed dual-class shares to attract tech companies. Earlier this year, JD.com, search engine Baidu, online travel agency Ctrip, and internet giant NetEase were said to be considering a secondary listing in the country.
Editing by Charmaine de Lazo
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