BEIJING: The delivery arm of e-commerce platform JD.com, JD Logistics, is seeking to raise as much as HK$26.4 billion ($3.4 billion) in its Hong Kong IPO, with the plan to sell 609.2 million shares at a maximum offer price of HK$43.36 each, according to its prospectus filed with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKSE) on Monday. JD Logistics started taking investor orders on Monday and is expected to finalize the IPO price by Friday. It is set to begin trading on the HKSE on May 28, according to the plan laid out in the prospectus. The deal would be the second-largest IPO in the city this year, after short-video sharing platform Kuaishou Technology’s $6.2 billion listing in February, seizing on China’s e-commerce boom sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic.
JD Logistics operated more than 900 warehouses across China at the end of 2020; its networks include both “last mile” and longer distance lines, as well as cold chain and bulky item networks, the company said in its prospectus. Boosted by surging demand in online shopping during the pandemic, the logistics firm’s revenue climbed 47 percent last year to 73.4 billion yuan ($11.4 billion), the prospectus showed. The company plans to use the proceeds from the IPO to upgrade and expand its logistics networks, develop advanced technologies and expand its customer base. The warehousing and shipping company has attracted seven cornerstone investors to its offering, who agreed to subscribe for about $1.5 billion of stock, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter last week. They include SoftBank Vision Fund, Temasek Holdings Pte, Blackstone Group Inc., Tiger Global, China Chengtong Holdings Group Ltd., Matthews Asia and Oaktree Capital.
–The Daily Mail-CGTN
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