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China’s Zhihu Q&A Website Raises $106m in Hong Kong IPO

The deal comes amid an increasing number of US-listed Chinese firms also listing in Hong Kong as a regulatory stand-off shows no signs of ending


Zhou Yuan, founder and CEO of Chinese question-and-answer website Zhihu, speaks during the GeekPark 2019 Rebuild summit in Chengdu. File photo: AFP.

 

Chinese question and answer website Zhihu priced its Hong Kong listing at HK$32.06 each to raise HK$833 million ($106.25 million).

The company sold 26 million shares in its dual primary listing, according to its regulatory filings.

The deal comes amid an increasing number of US-listed Chinese firms also listing in Hong Kong as the regulatory stand-off between Beijing and Washington shows no signs of ending.

The dispute over allowing US auditors access to Chinese companies’ accounts is casting doubt on the future of those companies’ US listings.

Washington is demanding full access to the books of all US-listed Chinese companies, but Beijing has previously barred foreign inspection of working papers from local accounting firms.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) said earlier this month it would revise the confidentiality rules involving offshore listings, which could remove a legal hurdle to the company-audit stand-off.

Zhihu, which, like US knowledge-sharing website Quora, allows users to publicly post questions to which others offer replies, listed in New York in March last year.

Two of its US-listed depository receipts equal one Hong Kong share, according to a term sheet for the deal. The shares will start trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on April 22, the company’s regulatory filings show.

Four existing shareholders, led by Capital Today and Innovation Works, sold the stock for Zhihu’s Hong Kong listing, according to the term sheet.

Zhihu’s New York stock fell 2.7% on Wednesday as the bookbuild for the Hong Kong listing was being finalised. Its shares are down 61.2% so far in 2022.

 

  • Reuters, with additional editing by George Russell

 

 

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George Russell

George Russell is a freelance writer and editor based in Hong Kong who has lived in Asia since 1996. His work has been published in the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, New York Post, Variety, Forbes and the South China Morning Post.