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.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last