JD Logistics soars in Hong Kong debut, valuing it at US$34b

[HONG KONG] JD Logistics surged on its debut, giving the Chinese delivery and warehousing firm a US$34 billion stock market value and providing a strong start on Friday for Hong Kong's second-largest listing this year.

Shares of the company, spun out from Chinese e-commerce firm JD.com, rose as much as 18.3 per cent compared to the initial public offering (IPO) price. By early afternoon, they were up 9 per cent, against the broader market's 0.6 per cent gain.

JD Logistics' stock gains come after it priced its US$3.2 billion IPO closer to the lower end of an indicated range.

Its listing is being watched closely as an indicator of appetite for big IPOs in Hong Kong and of companies closely connected to China's internet economy, which is facing antitrust scrutiny.

Speaking at a briefing in Beijing on Friday to mark the listing, JD Logistics CEO Yu Rui said the scrutiny by regulators would bring it more opportunity as it was differentiating itself by spending on technology.

"We are going to use the funds raised from the IPO to further improve our networks, including in the lower-tier and suburban areas in China, and the infrastructure of the overseas markets," Mr Yu said.

JD Logistics' successful IPO and stock listing comes after the planned IPO of financial technology firm JD Digits, an affiliate of JD.com, was terminated last month.

The IPO is the second largest in Hong Kong in 2021 and only the third to raise more than US$1 billion in the city this year.

The other two were Kuaishou Technology, which leapt 161 per cent on debut in January, and Linklogis, which gained 9.9 per cent in April on opening day.

Shares of JD Logistics' close rival SF Holding Co have fallen about 20 per cent this year after vaulting 137 per cent last year. It has a market value of about US$50 billion.

JD Logistics, which gets about half of its revenue from JD.com, posted a two-thirds jump in first-quarter 2021 revenue to 22.4 billion yuan (S$4.66 billion).

But its gross profit slumped 73 per cent due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and costs of adding 60,000 workers to its headcount and it saw a first-quarter operating loss of 1.47 billion yuan.

The company's securities filings showed the retail portion of the IPO was oversubscribed 715 times and the institutional investor part was oversubscribed 10.18 times.

Cornerstone investors, who bought into the deal before it was opened to the public and included high profile investors such as SoftBank Group Corp's Vision Fund, Temasek Holdings and BlackRock, took nearly half of the shares in the IPO.

REUTERS