Hong Kong’s IPO market has been firing on all cylinders this year, attracting both up-and-coming Chinese companies, as well as industry stalwarts seeking to court more global investors to complement their domestic listings in Shenzhen and Shanghai. Among the latter group, Shenzhen-listed smartphone glass maker Lens Technology (6613.HK; 300433.SZ) made such a second listing in July, wowing global investors with its status as a major supplier to Apple.
Now, Luxshare Precision Industry Co. Ltd. (002475.SZ), another major made-in-China Apple partner, has filed for its own Hong Kong IPO, hoping to ride the ongoing listing boom to raise billions of dollars from the city’s more international pool of investors. The company has yet to give a fundraising target, but local media have reported the amount could exceed 20 billion yuan ($2.8 billion).
The company’s story is the stuff of legends in Chinese business circles. Founder Wang Laichun, one of the country’s wealthiest female entrepreneurs, was born in rural China in 1967, but didn’t want to be chained to the land or rely on a husband for the rest of her life. So, she went to the city of Shenzhen, then known as a sort of Wild West of China with business-friendly policies, to seek a better life. She arrived at the city and quickly became an assembly line worker at the first Shenzhen factory for Foxconn, the Taiwanese contract manufacturing giant that is also one of Apple’s main production partners.