The Asia-Pacific beer unit of Anheuser-Busch InBev NV gained as much as 7 percent in its Hong Kong trading debut, boosting the lackluster global market in initial public offerings (IPO) and vindicating the beermaker in its second attempt at an Asian listing.
Budweiser Brewing Co APAC Ltd raised US$5 billion selling shares at the bottom of a price range last week in the world’s second-biggest IPO this year behind Uber Technologies Inc. That gave the Asian unit an enterprise value of US$45 billion, helping the parent company reduce its massive debt load and laying the groundwork for possible acquisitions.
The shares rose to as high as HK$28.90 in Hong Kong trading yesterday from the offering price of HK$27. The benchmark Hang Seng Index increased 0.6 percent. Shares of the parent company slipped 0.4 percent in early Brussels trading, but they have risen 50 percent so far this year.
Photo: Bloomberg
“We’ve seen very solid demand for our stock when we did the management roadshow,” Budweiser Brewing APAC chief executive officer Jan Craps told a briefing in Hong Kong yesterday. “We are confident there’s a strong foundation here.”
The result provides an encouraging conclusion to what has been a rocky IPO path for the Asia arm of the world’s biggest beer company. Budweiser Brewing originally expected to storm into Hong Kong as a US$64 billion company, but the deal was shelved in July amid lackluster demand. It was a high-profile setback that spotlighted the growing disconnect between companies’ lofty private valuations and investors’ expectations, with would-be buyers skeptical of even well-known brands.
Anheuser-Busch InBev revived the offering after selling its Australian operations to Japan’s Asahi Group Holdings Ltd for about US$11 billion. That roughly halved the size of the Asia-Pacific offering, giving investors a more focused stake in faster-growing parts of the regional business, with brands like Cass in South Korea and Harbin in China.
The gains in Budweiser’s trading debut might give some hope to a global IPO scene unsettled this year by volatile markets and geopolitical uncertainties. Multiple companies have halted their scheduled listings in Hong Kong, which is facing twin pressures from anti-government protests and a trade dispute between the US and China.
Budweiser’s launch helped propel Hong Kong past Shanghai as the world’s No. 3 market for IPOs this year. It might also shore up investor sentiment for upcoming IPOs that might include the lucrative secondary listing of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴).
“This IPO is quite different to many others that have faced headwinds recently,” Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Euan McLeish said. “BUD APAC is widely recognized as a high-quality company.”
“Strong earnings visibility” will drive continued investor interest, McLeish said.
The debut helped Anheuser-Busch InBev further trim its US$100 billion-plus debt pile after its purchase of SABMiller in 2016, letting it accelerate its goal of creating a regional champion in Asia, especially through acquisitions.
Craps yesterday said that the company can create a lot of value with regional players in Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”