JD.COM, China’s second largest e-commerce company, has filed confidentially to list its shares in Hong Kong hoping to raise at least US$2 billion, a report said yesterday, following a mega-IPO by rival Alibaba last year.

JD’s listing could come as soon as the second half of the year, Bloomberg News said, quoting sources with knowledge of the planned deal.

The company has appointed Bank of America, CLSA and UBS to lead the deal.

JD.com raised US$1.78 billion when it listed on the Nasdaq in New York in 2014 and now has a market capitalization of US$64 billion, according to Refinitiv data.

Like many e-commerce giants, JD looks set to have weathered the worst of the global pandemic’s impact as demand soars for home deliveries.

In March, the company said net revenue of the first quarter of 2020 was expected to grow at least 10 percent year on year.

“Our leading supply chain and logistics network have been called upon to address unmet needs across China,” billionaire founder Richard Liu said in a statement.

The potential listing would help the company better compete with e-commerce rivals including Alibaba and Amazon.

A secondary listing of the company would provide a boost for Hong Kong’s capital markets which have suffered a marked slowdown in big ticket deals since Alibaba’s US$13 billion transaction in November last year.(SD-Agencies)