Over the past week, two private Chinese technology unicorns, Xiaohongshu (“Little Red Book”) and Sensetime, announced that they had raised nearly $1 billion, adding to the ranks of large Chinese enterprises thinking about going public. Another Chinese company is scheduled to IPO in June, 3 recently selected bankers (a key step for launching an IPO) and 11 have already gone public for a total of 15 year to date, compared to 15 in all of 2017.
Why the surge in activity? Performance.
Year to date, the 11 Chinese companies are up 39%, compared to only 3% for last year’s vintage. HUYA, a leading live streaming platform for video games, is up 147% since its May 10, 2018 IPO, followed by another video streamer, IQIYI, up 62%. Last year’s big winner was tiny filter maker Newater, up 177%, followed by online lender Lexin Fintech, up 73%, while more than half of its 2017 comrades are under water.
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