Equity Issue: WuXi XDC’s HK$4.06bn HK IPO

IFR Asia Awards 2023
3 min read
Asia
Fiona Lau

Standout success

The HK$4.06bn (US$520m) Hong Kong IPO of WuXi XDC revived the city’s lacklustre IPO market by demonstrating that international interest was still there for the right names.

The Chinese contract medical researcher, a unit of Hong Kong-listed WuXi Biologics, drew rare support from global institutional investors when most Hong Kong IPOs were dragged over the finish line with the help of “friends-and-family” orders.

The second-largest Hong Kong IPO of 2023 showcased the city’s fundraising ability at a time when people had started losing faith in the once active primary market. Hong Kong IPOs raised just US$5.9bn in 2023, the lowest in 20 years and ranked eighth globally.

The deal hit the market in November when most Hong Kong IPOs earlier in the year had traded poorly even after slashing deal sizes and lowering valuations.

However, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, XDC’s sponsors, managed to persuade seven top-tier global investors to invest a combined US$300m, equivalent to around 64% of the deal, as cornerstone investors and agree to a six-month lock-up.

They were Invesco, General Atlantic Singapore, Qatar Investment Authority, UBS Asset Management (Singapore), HongShan Funds, Novo Holdings and Lake Bleu Funds.

The QIA investment was particularly eye-catching as Middle Eastern money had not been drawn to Hong Kong IPOs for some time.

Unlike some other healthcare companies, XDC is profitable and high growth. The company focuses on ADCs – a class of biopharmaceutical drugs designed as a targeted cancer therapy, killing tumour cells while sparing healthy cells. It posted an adjusted profit of Rmb216m (US$30m) for the first half of 2023, almost double the Rmb109m from a year earlier.

The deal drew tremendous demand with the institutional tranche 19.6 times subscribed and the retail portion close to 50 times covered.

Demand came from all over the world. Excluding the cornerstone tranche, 38% of the deal went to Asian investors, 47% to the US and 15% to Europe. By investor type, long-only investors and healthcare specialists took 81%, hedge funds 11%, China funds 6%, and others including corporate, family offices and private wealth investors 2%.

The offering of 178m primary shares, or 15.1% of the enlarged share capital, was priced at the top of the HK$19.90–$20.60 range. That valued XDC at a 2024 P/E of around 34x, representing a premium of 18% over its parent.

XDC made a stellar debut on November 17, closing at HK$28, up 36%. It ended the year at HK$32, up 55%. A greenshoe of 19.2m shares was fully exercised.

After the IPO, WuXi Biologics owned 50.9% of XDC and WuXi AppTec held 33.9%.

CICC, Citigroup and Huatai Financial were the other joint global coordinators and bookrunners.

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