Horizon Robotics surged in its trading debut after one of Hong Kong’s largest listings this year, adding to optimism that the city’s IPO market is making a comeback.
Shares in the Chinese autonomous-driving technology company rose as much as 38% to 5.50 Hong Kong dollars in early Thursday trading. The stock opened 28% higher.
The gains came despite broadly weaker sentiment in the Hong Kong market, with the benchmark Hang Seng Index down 1.0% by midday and the Hang Seng Tech Index 1.8% lower.
The Beijing-based company raised 5.41 billion Hong Kong dollars, equivalent to US$696.4 million, after pricing its initial public offering at HK$3.99 a share, the upper end of its target range.
Alibaba, Baidu and state-owned Beijing Financial Holdings were among the cornerstone investors in the IPO. Volkswagen, a current shareholder, formed a joint venture with Horizon Robotics in 2022 to help it develop self-driving tech catered to the Chinese market.
The company posted a loss of 6.74 billion yuan last year, equivalent to US$945.8 million, narrowing from 8.72 billion yuan in 2022. It attributed the continued loss to the large investment needed upfront for technological advancement and talent acquisition.
Founded in 2015, Horizon Robotics provides advanced driver-assistance systems and autonomous-driving solutions that combine algorithms, purpose-built software and processing hardware for assisted and autonomous driving for passenger vehicles. It is headed by Yu Kai, a former artificial-intelligence scientist at Baidu.
Its strong listing follows China Resources Beverage’s solid debut on Wednesday. The bottled-water company rose 15% in its first day of trading after raising the equivalent of nearly US$650 million in its IPO.
Hong Kong’s exchange operator said 15 new listings in the third quarter raised a combined HK$42.2 billion, more than triple the amount raised in the first half of the year.