By Scott Murdoch and Donny Kwok
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Shares of Chinese fintech firm Linklogis Inc, which is backed by technology giant Tencent Holdings, opened 9.9% higher in their Hong Kong debut on Friday after the company raised $1.02 billion in its initial public offering.
The shares traded at HK$19.32 ($2.48), compared to the $HK17.58 price in the IPO that sold 452.87 million shares.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was down 0.40% in early trading on Friday while the Hang Seng Tech Index was up 0.17%.
Chinese fintech companies have come under greater scrutiny from mainland regulators since a $37 billion IPO of Ant Group was shelved in November.
But Linklogis would not be affected much by that, some analysts said.
“I don’t think regulation is as much of a worry as the company mainly caters to institutions and isn’t consumer (retail) facing which is where the bulk of the regulatory oversight has come in,” said Sumeet Singh, Aequitas Research director, who publishes on Smartkarma.
Linklogis, which specialises in supply chain finance, priced its shares at the mid point of the range of HK$16.28 to $HK18.28 flagged when the IPO launched on March 26.
The retail portion of the IPO was oversubscribed 98.46 times while the institutional tranche was covered 14.8 times, according to the company.
Linklogis is also part of a consortium that has been granted a Singapore wholesale digital bank licence that is due to launch in 2022.
($1 = 7.7780 Hong Kong dollars)
(Reporting by Donny Kwok and Scott Murdoch; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Muralikumar Anantharaman)
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