JD.Com fintech unit aims to win Beijing approval for HK listing as soon as year ends – sources

HONG KONG/SYDNEY, Nov 15 (Reuters) – The fintech arm of Chinese e-commerce firm JD.Com ( 9618.HK ) aims to win Beijing regulators’ approval to list in Hong Kong as soon as the end of the year , three people with direct knowledge of the matter said, after a first attempt failed earlier this year.

JD Technology’s initial public offering (IPO) will be one of the biggest IPOs by Chinese companies in Hong Kong since a sweeping regulatory crackdown began in China two years ago, as part of tightening scrutiny of capital-raising outside mainland China.

The revived IPO plan comes as Chinese authorities in recent months have softened their tone on cracking down on technology companies as they seek to boost an economy that has been hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The size of JD Tech’s IPO has yet to be determined and could be less from the earlier target of $2 billion, as demand for new share sales remains weak globally, one of the people with knowledge of the matter said. If the listing is approved, the timing remains unclear and dependent on market conditions.

There have been about $10.3 billion in IPOs and other listings in Hong Kong so far in 2022, just over a quarter of the $37.7 billion of trades made at the same time last year, according to Refinitiv data.

Banks have restarted to work on the flow since mid-October, one of the sources said. The people with knowledge of the IPO plans declined to be identified as the information was private.

Reuters reported in May that JD Tech’s original plan for a Hong Kong IPO was put on hold because it could not get regulatory approval for the deal to go ahead.

JD.Com did not respond to a request for comment.

As a nationally incorporated company, JD Tech – JD.Com’s fintech, cloud and artificial intelligence unit – needs approval from the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) to list offshore, including in the Chinese-controlled territory of Hong Kong.

It first applied to the CSRC in late January to seek an offshore listing, according to the regulator’s website.

CSRC’s international division, the main regulator for such offshore listings, recently reviewed JD Tech’s application and contacted other relevant regulators to seek their views on the business, one of the sources said.

The CSRC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

JD Tech, which was spun off as a separate entity in mid-2017, had appointed several banks to work on the IPO, but progress had slowed when it failed to win regulatory approval the first time, sources previously told Reuters.

As JD Tech seeks to advance its IPO plan, shareholders in Ant Group’s consumer finance unit said on Monday that the unit will more than double its registered capital to $2.62 billion – a move that could help the fintech giant move closer to the end of regulation. driven renovation. read more

Reporting by Julie Zhu and Kane Wu in Hong Kong and Scott Murdoch in Sydney; Editing by Sumeet Chatterjee and Kenneth Maxwell

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