Chinese tech IPOs’ complicated comeback

AFTER going silent for over a year, the market for Chinese tech listings is finally showing signs of life again. Global investors would probably love to “gan bei” to a fresh wave of stock market debuts. But many are still keeping a sober watch on geopolitical and economic volatility.

On Monday (May 8), Alibaba’s logistics arm Cainiao Network Technology was reported to be eyeing a Hong Kong initial public offering (IPO) of up to US$2 billion. This could be the first of other Alibaba-linked IPOs in the offing. In late March, the e-commerce giant unveiled its split into six units: Cainiao; cloud intelligence; Taobao and Tmall; food delivery and mapping; digital media and entertainment; and global digital commerce. The last of those includes e-commerce platforms AliExpress and Lazada. These units may each pursue an independent IPO.

Beyond Alibaba, several Chinese companies have also submitted applications for Hong Kong listings, such as the owner of logistics service Lalamove, fitness app Keep and social media platform Soulgate. More exciting IPO aspirants could include TikTok parent ByteDance – most recently valued at US$220 billion – as well as fast-fashion giant Shein and Xiaohongshu, dubbed China’s answer to Instagram.