Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals, one of China’s largest drug makers, began trading on the Hong Kong stock exchange on Friday, marking a key step in its international expansion and giving a boost to the city’s recovering initial public offerings (IPO) market.
Trading under code 1276, Hengrui first changed hands at HK$57.00, up 29.4 per cent to its offer price of HK$44.05, in a stock offering that raised HK$9.89 billion (US$1.26 billion).
The strong debut signals solid investor confidence in the company’s long-term prospects, particularly its growing international pipeline and innovative drug R&D capabilities.
Retail investors in Hong Kong submitted bids that oversubscribed their tranche more than 450 times, while the institutional tranche was oversubscribed nearly 17 times, according to a stock exchange filing on Thursday.
“Hengrui has experienced an extraordinary journey, growing into an innovative, international large-scale listed pharmaceutical company,” said Dai Hongbin, deputy chairman of Hengrui, adding that the company was honoured to complete the A shares plus H shares listing.
“Listing in Hong Kong is a key step for Hengrui to enter the international capital market and accelerate innovation and internationalisation,” he said. “We will take this listing as a new starting point, remain true to our original aspiration, forge ahead, strive for high-quality development and global layout, and inject strong impetus into the high-quality development of China’s pharmaceutical industry, providing better innovative medicines for patients worldwide.”
