By Nikita Maria Jino, Roshan Thomas and Yantoultra Ngui
Aug 31 (Reuters) – Shein on Monday priced its Hong Kong initial public offering below the top end of its marketed range, raising HK$13.60 billion ($1.74 billion) from the share sale.
The online fast-fashion retailer offered 280 million shares for the listing at HK$48.56 per share. Last week, it said it would offer shares between HK$47.60 and HK$49.50 apiece.
The Hong Kong public offering portion was subscribed 5.63 times, while the international portion was subscribed 2.59 times, Shein said in a stock exchange filing on Monday.
“Judging by the subscription response, I believe the oversubscription rate is relatively mild,” said Kenny Ng, strategist at China Everbright Securities International in Hong Kong.
“Some investors remain relatively cautious about its valuation” due to fluid international trade policies in recent years and the impact of geopolitical tensions on global consumer sentiment, Ng said.
Reuters last week reported that the retailer’s Hong Kong IPO book had been fully covered by investor demand despite growing business and regulatory challenges.
The Singapore-based, Chinese-founded company’s shares are slated to begin trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Tuesday.
Shares of the fast-fashion retailer dropped more than 10% in gray-market trading on Monday. Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing said on Friday it would launch options and allow short selling of Shein shares from their trading debut.
Shein said in an exchange filing last week that most of the proceeds from the offering would be used to improve its technology and boost brand awareness and global presence.
REGULATORY ISSUES CLOUD DEBUT
The long-awaited market debut comes after the online retailer, known for selling low-cost clothing to shoppers in about 160 countries, scrapped plans to list in New York and London.
Shein has been working to address environmental, social and governance concerns that have triggered regulatory investigations and fines in several countries, complicating previous efforts to take the company public.
The company is also under investigation by the European Commission and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.
Previous probes resulted in fines in France over alleged fake discounts and in Italy over greenwashing, as fast-fashion retailers come under increased scrutiny from regulators.
Greenwashing refers to the practice of overstating the environmental benefits of an organisation.
Shein said in late July it swung to a quarterly loss of $99 million after the United States removed an import duty exemption for small packages and after it recorded a $328 million fair-value charge on convertible redeemable preferred shares following an accounting change.
($1 = 7.8379 Hong Kong dollars)
(Reporting by Nikita Maria Jino and Roshan Thomas in Bengaluru and Yantoultra Ngui in Hong Kong; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips, Diti Pujara, Devika Syamnath and Tomasz Janowski)
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