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Chinese Cancer Screening Firm Soars 185% in Hong Kong IPO Debut
New Horizon Health opened at HK$76, up from the offer price of HK$26.66, which was already at the upper end of a marketed range. The biotech company raised $263 million in the IPO.
Chinese cancer screening biotech firm New Horizon Health Ltd. soared 185% on its Hong Kong debut on Thursday, the latest initial public offering to pop on its first trading day after attracting billions of dollars of orders from retail investors.
New Horizon Health opened at HK$76, up from the offer price of HK$26.66, which was already at the upper end of a marketed range. The biotech company raised $263 million in the IPO.
Thursday’s pop shows that the IPO frenzy gripping Hong Kong is not abating, coming two weeks after short-video company Kuaishou Technology leaped 161% in its debut, the second-best ever for an IPO over $1 billion in the world.
Over 1 million Hong Kong investors put in orders worth some HK$844 billion ($109 billion) for New Horizon Health’s IPO. That represents a subscription rate of 4,133 times, the second-highest on record after Most Kwai Chung’s 2018 IPO, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
First-time share sales have had their best start to the year on record in Asia, helped by Kuaishou’s mammoth offering and fueled by markets awash with liquidity, a stock rally, as well as hordes of retail investors bidding for shares. The dizzying first-day pops as well as the flurry of IPOs by blank-cheque companies in the US have led some to warn of overheated markets.
