Zhang Yu

JeniZhang13@163.com

HONG KONG will continue to be the preferred listing location for mainland firms already listing shares on foreign bourses to seek secondary listings in the second half of this year, according to accounting firm PwC.

In the first half of this year, 78 technology, media and telecommunications (TMT) companies from the mainland launched initial public offerings (IPOs) on the Hong Kong stock exchange, compared with 109 in the second half a year ago, according to figures released by PwC.

These firms raised approximately 213.8 billion yuan (US$33 billion) from their IPOs, PwC statistics show.

“In the first half of 2021, mainland TMT firms continued their strong performance in the capital market, driven by listings in the United States and ‘homecoming’ listings in the Hong Kong market,” said Frank Cai, PwC’s Chinese mainland media industry leader.

Kuaishou Technology, the operator of China’s most popular short-video service after ByteDance Ltd.’s Douyin, raised HK$48.3 billion (US$6.21 billion) from its Hong Kong IPO to make it the largest mainland TMT IPO in the first half of the year.

In the first half of the year, four mainland TMT firms chose Hong Kong for their secondary listings, raising a combined 52.9 billion yuan and accounting for 25 percent of the total TMT IPO proceeds during the period.

The four firms are online car-sales website Autohome Inc., search engine giant Baidu Inc., video streaming platform Bilibili Inc. and online travel agency Ctrip Group.