China Tourism Group Duty Free Corporation, which operated mostly on duty-free shops in China on Thursday, made its trading debut on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
This was after raising 16.2 billion Hong Kong dollars (about 2.1 billion dollars) of proceeds in the financial hub’s biggest listing so far this year.
The company, already listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, issued some 102.8 million shares and set its Hong Kong Initial Public Offering (IPO) price at 158 Hong Kong dollars (20.14 dollars) per share.
According to the company’s prospectus, nine cornerstone investors agree to subscribe to the offering.
Among them, China State-Owned Enterprise Mixed Ownership Reform Fund Co. Ltd took the lead with 150 million dollars, followed by 100 million dollars by cosmetics giant Amorepacific Corp of South Korea.
According to the prospectus, it was established in 1984 and after 40 years of development, the Beijing-based company has become the largest travel retail operator in the world primarily focusing on sales of high-quality duty-free and duty-paid merchandise.
The firm said its operating 193 stores, including 184 stores in 100 cities across 28 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions in the Chinese mainland, and nine duty-free stores overseas.
The firm said it benefited from the favourable domestic duty-free policies, which led to increases in both revenue and net profit in 2020 and 2021 despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The company reported a revenue of over 67.67 billion yuan (about 9.88 billion dollars) in 2021, up 28.67 per cent year on year.
