By Scott Murdoch and Kane Wu
HONG KONG (Reuters) -China’s Zijin Gold International surged as much as 72% in its Hong Kong trading debut on Tuesday after raising $3.2 billion in the world’s largest IPO this year, lifting sentiment for new listings in the financial hub.
The strong debut comes amid a sustained rally in gold prices and September fundraising boom in Hong Kong, where more than $16 billion has been raised through listings, follow-ons and convertible bonds.
Zijin Gold, a unit of China’s Zijin Mining that operates all of the group’s gold mines outside China, sold 349 million shares at HK$71.59 each.
The company’s shares closed at HK$120.6, up 69% from its initial public offering (IPO) price and after having risen as much as HK$123 during the day, to give it a market value of HK$316.45 billion ($41 billion).
The jump made it one of the best-performing debuts in Hong Kong in the past decade, according to Dealogic data.
GOLD BOOM LIFTS ZIJIN”S MARKET DEBUT
Zijin Gold’s debut is expected to encourage other companies to speed up their listing plans in Hong Kong, which has led global markets in initial and secondary listings so far this year, driven by demand for Chinese AI and tech stocks.
Booming demand for Chinese artificial intelligence and technology stocks has seen a raft of Chinese companies, many of which have already listed on the mainland, sell their shares in Hong Kong over the past year.
In a sign of strong investor interest in the Zijin Gold IPO, the retail tranche of the offering was 241 times oversubscribed, while institutional investors bid for 20.4 times more than the number of shares reserved for them, regulatory filings showed.
The strong demand came on the back of gold prices hitting a record high on Tuesday, having risen 11.4% so far in September, on track for its best month since August 2011.
The yellow metal is up about 42% this year.
“For mining enterprises like Zijin Gold in the upstream of the gold industry chain, a sustained high and rising gold price will drive the performance growth, as the rise in gold prices will directly boost its revenue and profits,” said Xinyao Wang, an analyst who publishes on SmartKarma, in a research note Tuesday.
NEW LISTINGS
With 97.9 million shares worth HK$11.2 billion changing hands, Zijin Gold was the fourth most actively traded stock by turnover on Tuesday. The benchmark Hang Seng Index was up 0.9% on Tuesday.
Zijin Mining’s Hong Kong shares rose as much as 8.2% after Zijin Gold’s debut but have pared gains to close 1.4% higher.
The company’s Shanghai-listed shares were up 3.1%.
So far in 2025, IPOs and secondary listings worth $23.2 billion have taken place in Hong Kong, marking the busiest year since 2021, according to Dealogic data.
Zijin Gold’s IPO was the largest such deal in Hong Kong since JD Logistics’ float in May 2021, which raised $3.6 billion, Dealogic data showed.
It was the second largest new listing globally, falling short of Chinese battery giant CATL which in May raised $5.3 billion in its second listing in Hong Kong with overallotment fully exercised.
If an overallotment is exercised on the Zijin deal, it would raise $3.7 billion and be the largest IPO since Kuaishou Technology raised $6.2 billion in January 2021.
Zijin Gold said in its prospectus it is planning to use the proceeds over the next five years to upgrade existing mines.
It added that it expects global gold demand to grow steadily at a compound annual growth rate of 3.2% from 2024 to 2030.
($1 = 7.7804 Hong Kong dollars)
(Reporting by Scott Murdoch in Sydney, Kane Wu and Donny Kwok in Hong Kong; Editing by Christian Schmollinger, Neil Fullick and Lincoln Feast.)
