Qiyunshan takes debut-day crown in two-day Hong Kong IPO frenzy

Shares of fruit snack seller Jiangxi Qiyunshan Food Co. Ltd. (2797.HK) more than doubled in their trading debut on Thursday, making it the best performer over a frenzied two-day period that saw 12 companies complete their Hong Kong IPOs.

Qiyunshan raised a relatively small HK$167 million ($21.3 million) by selling 25 million shares for HK$8 each. The stock traded as high as HK$26 during the day – more than triple the IPO price – before closing at HK$21, up 163%. The retail portion of the offer for local investors was more than 1,600 times oversubscribed, while the international portion was 1.51 times covered.

Qiyunshan ended the day with a market value of HK$2.1 billion. Its revenue fell 7.4% last year to 314 million yuan ($46.2 million), while its profit fell 8.1% to 48.9 million yuan.

Qiyunshan was the best performer among the 12 companies to list over the last two days, including seven that debuted on Thursday. One listing on Tuesday and another two set for Friday will bring the weekly total to 15 companies that made their trading debuts this week, in one of Hong Kong’s hottest IPO markets in years.

While Qiyunshan logged the best first-day performance among the 12 new listings on Wednesday and Thursday, the worst performance came from Rigol (0537.HK), an electronic test and measurement instrument company, whose shares fell 37.4% on their first trading day. The largest listing came from electronics contract manufacturer Luxshare (2475.HK; 002475.HK), which raised HK$24 billion.

By Doug Young

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