Chinese EV battery maker CATL rides green energy wave to raise US$5 billion in Hong Kong

CHINA’s electric vehicle ​battery maker CATL raised HK$39.2 billion (US$5 billion) on Tuesday (Apr 28), tapping strong investor appetite for green energy stocks as the Iran war drives up oil prices and accelerates the global shift away from fossil fuels.

The fundraising comes as Chinese exports of solar products, batteries and electric vehicles hit record highs in March, according to energy think tank Ember, in a sign the oil shock is quickening the global pivot to clean energy, a sector dominated by CATL.

The company held a 38.1 per cent share of the global electric vehicle battery market in the first ten months of 2025, according to South Korean research firm SNE Research, making it the world’s top-ranked battery maker.

CATL, which makes batteries for Tesla, BMW, Volkswagen, Xiaomi and Nio, priced 62.4 million new H shares at HK$628.20 each, the bottom of its marketed range, according to a stock exchange filing on Tuesday.

The shares were sold at a 7 per cent discount to Monday’s closing price of HK$675.50. The stock opened down 6.7 per cent on Tuesday and dropped 7.6 per cent to HK$624 closer to midday.

The fundraising is the largest equity offering in Hong Kong so far this year and the biggest in the financial hub since CATL’s own US$5.25 billion listing last May, the world’s biggest share offering in 2025, according to LSEG data.

Globally, it ranks as 2026’s second-largest equity deal, after Galderma Group’s US$6.26 billion follow-on sale in March, the LSEG data showed.

It comes as CATL expands overseas while grappling with China’s brutally competitive EV market, where rapid sales growth has yet to translate into durable profits.

Analysts described the timing as smart, if opportunistic.

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Catching the ‘perfect wave’

“Even at the bottom price range, CATL is not immune to the ‘geopolitical repricing’, this is a landmark US$5 billion deal,” said Winston Ma, executive director of the Global Public Investment Funds Forum and a former managing director at the China Investment Corporation.

“CATL is catching a perfect wave,” he said. “A surging stock price, a supply-side shock in fossil fuels, and a Hong Kong market that is once again hungry for ‘heavyweight’ tech leadership equity - perfect for an opportunistic financing like this.”

Dickie Wong, executive director of research at uSMART Securities, concurred but flagged the rich valuation.

“This H-share fundraising looks largely opportunistic,” he said. “H-shares are already trading at a 35 per cent premium to the A-shares, with very low free float compared to A-shares. The placement should help improve liquidity and attract more long-term international investors and index funds.”

“However, with valuations looking quite rich and recent stake-trimming by Sinopec plus another major A-share investor, it feels like a smart top-up at elevated prices,” he added.

CATL’s Hong Kong-listed shares have jumped about 137 per cent from their HK$263 listing price in May 2025. Its Shenzhen-listed shares are up about 16 per cent year to date, valuing the company at about US$293.9 billion, according to LSEG data.

Last week, a Sinopec unit sold 8.5 million CATL Hong Kong shares for about US$770 million, cashing in on the rally. In March, CATL reported market-topping fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 net profit.

Proceeds from the deal will fund global factory expansion, the development of a zero-carbon business, research and development, and general working capital, the company’s filing showed. REUTERS