Yum China shares begin buying and selling in Hong Kong in secondary itemizing

SINGAPORE — Shares of Yum China started buying and selling in Hong Kong on Thursday, however misplaced greater than 4% in early commerce.

Yum China, which operates quick meals eating places KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut in China, raised $2.22 billion by promoting 41.9 million shares at 412 Hong Kong {dollars} ($53.16) apiece on this secondary itemizing.

The corporate has been listed in New York since 2016.

Yum China’s Hong Kong debut comes after the secondary listings of gaming large NetEase and e-commerce agency JD.com, which raised 21.09 billion Hong Kong {dollars} ($2.7 billion) and 30.05 billion Hong Kong {dollars} ($3.87 billion), respectively.

The string of mega choices marks what has been a scorching 12 months for listings in Hong Kong. U.S.-listed Chinese language corporations have been flocking to the town for his or her secondary listings amid rising U.S.-China tensions. The U.S. Senate handed a invoice in June that would basically ban many Chinese language corporations from itemizing on American exchanges. 

R.J. Hottovy, client fairness analysis strategist at Morningstar, steered the inventory’s preliminary decline could point out buyers seeing points with the corporate itself, fairly than IPO fatigue.

“It is clear that not everyone is on board with investing in that area proper now … frankly there’s numerous uncertainty with Covid,” he informed CNBC on Thursday. “Are individuals going to dine out much less.. are they going to embrace on-line grocery? … Demand is definitely the one I feel that in all probability is the most important concern.”

However on the entire, Hottovy identified that the corporate has had “some fairly spectacular progress.”

“I feel Yum China’s doing fairly properly. I feel there might be a chance. We do see these shares as barely undervalued at this level,” he mentioned.