Just when you thought Hong Kong’s initial public offering (IPO) market could not get any frothier, a bubble tea maker has surged 217 percent on its debut.
Shares of B & S International Holdings Ltd (賓仕國際控股), known for a famous franchise called TenRen (天仁), is having the strongest trading debut of this year, rallying to HK$3.17 at 2:48pm yesterday, after pricing at HK$1.
With orders for 2,601 times as many shares as were sold, the IPO was the most oversubscribed among 51 Hong Kong IPOs this year and the second-most ever.
Hong Kong IPOs are sizzling this year.
The initial retail portion of an average offering has been 225 times subscribed this year, more than double the level last year, data compiled by Bloomberg showed.
Franchised under brands including TenRen, B & S runs 42 retail outlets in Hong Kong.
The company generated about 43 percent of its revenue from the retail business for the five months that ended on Aug. 31 last year, its share sale prospectus showed.
“This is an irrational rally driven by speculators chasing a relatively small stock,” said Ronald Wan (溫天納), chief executive of Partners Capital International (博大資本國際) in Hong Kong. “It’s just a franchise chain and we have numerous Taiwanese bubble tea companies in Hong Kong.”
RSS