XIAOMI Corp.’s debut is off to a bad start even before its shares officially begin trading in Hong Kong today.

Some institutional investors saw bids for the smartphone maker’s shares as low as HK$15.20 (US$1.94) Thursday with no offers in gray-market trading, according to two people familiar with the matter. That’s 11 percent below the issue price. There was some selling interest at a 5 percent discount, though no firm offers, according to Andrew Jackson, head of Japanese equities at Soochow CSSD Capital Markets in Singapore.

The tussle over Xiaomi’s high valuation and concern over a U.S.-China trade war have overshadowed what had been one of the world’s most highly anticipated initial public offerings (IPOs) of the year. The smartphone maker said Friday it raised just US$3.1 billion after pricing the IPO at the bottom end of a range, cutting its valuation to about US$54 billion — roughly half of the initial goal.

The company also scrapped a plan to sell shares on the mainland after failing to satisfy regulators.

Traders will be able to bet on further declines by shorting the stock on its first day of trading, according to the Hong Kong exchange operator.

Xiaomi is the first in Hong Kong to sell shares with a dual-class structure since the city changed its rules to allow founders to keep outsized voting rights, although that means the stock won’t be included in MSCI Inc.’s global benchmarks. (SD-Agencies)