It was the hottest initial public offering (IPO) in town and now Nongfu Spring Co’s (農夫山泉) stock surge has made its founder, Zhong Shanshan (鍾睒睒), China’s third-richest person.
Shares of the bottled-water maker jumped as much as 85 percent yesterday and closed up 54 percent in Hong Kong.
The debut was the territory’s fourth-best on record among firms that raised more than US$1 billion.
The surge has pushed the net worth of Zhong, who owns 84 percent of the company he founded in 1996, to US$51 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
He is now the wealthiest person in China after Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s (阿里巴巴) Jack Ma (馬雲) and Tencent Holdings Ltd’s (騰訊) Pony Ma (馬化騰).
The IPO was a smash hit in Hong Kong, so much so that the retail portion was oversubscribed by more than 1,100 times and Nongfu increased the number of shares allocated to the public.
That was after it priced at the top end of a marketed range.
Despite the COVID-19 outbreak, the IPO market in China, including Hong Kong, has remained vibrant this year.
Companies raised almost US$60 billion via new share sales this year, more than double the same period last year, data compiled by Bloomberg showed.
Hong Kong is becoming an increasingly popular listing venue amid US-China tensions, while demand from retail investors has been surging as ample liquidity encouraged banks to lend.
In China, IPOs produced at least 24 new billionaires in the first half of the year.
Zhong, also known by the local media as the Lone Wolf for eschewing business groups and politics, is the only tycoon among China’s five richest people who is not from the tech or real-estate industry, which typically dominate the rankings.
His fortune was boosted in April, when Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy Enterprise Co (萬泰生物) — a company in which he acquired a controlling stake almost two decades ago — went public in Shanghai. The stock has surged almost 2,150 percent since.
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