Shares of Chinese drug company Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals jumped a lot when they started trading in Hong Kong. This shows that many companies want to raise money by selling shares in Hong Kong’s stock market.
On Friday morning, Hengrui’s stock price went up 31% to 57.65 Hong Kong dollars. During the same time, the main stock market index, the Hang Seng Index, only rose by 0.6%.
The Chinese drug company raised HK$9.74 billion (about US$1.25 billion) from its stock sale.
This makes it one of the biggest new listings in Hong Kong this year.
The stock price was HK$44.05 per share, the highest price they planned to charge.
Meanwhile, Hengrui’s Shanghai-listed shares were last down 0.1%.
On Friday, another drug company, Mirxes from Singapore, had a strong start in Hong Kong. Mirxes, which works on cancer treatments, raised HK$880.5 million. Its shares went up 28% in the morning.
Hong Kong’s IPO market has been picking up recently, mainly because Chinese companies want to list their shares for the second time in the city.
More companies from China’s main stock market (A-shares) are joining in, which has helped increase the number of new stock sales this year, according to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange last month.
According to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, the money raised from 17 new stock listings in the first three months of this year was almost four times more than the amount raised during the same time last year, reaching HK$18.7 billion.
On Friday, new companies started trading after a massive stock sale by Chinese battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology, an important Tesla supplier. This company, also listed in Shenzhen, raised more than US$4.6 billion, making it the biggest stock sale in the world so far this year.
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