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Shares of a Chinese renewable energy group nearly tripled on their first day of trading in Asia’s largest initial public offering so far this year.
China Resources New Energy, one of the country’s biggest renewable energy providers, raised Rmb24.5bn ($3.6bn) in a listing in Shenzhen on Thursday. Shares rose as much as 198 per cent, triggering a brief trading halt, before settling up about 150 per cent.
In China, shares of companies cannot rise more than 10 per cent in a day except during the first five trading days after a listing.
The company is the clean energy spin-off of China Resources Power, a Hong Kong-listed group whose ultimate shareholder is China Resources, a sprawling state-owned conglomerate with business interests ranging from beer to property.
Shares of China Resources Power fell about 1 per cent in Hong Kong on Thursday.
The issuance attracted strong interest from retail investors. The tranche of shares reserved for them was oversubscribed by 683 times.
In its listing announcement, the company warned of “risks of irrational speculation after listing” and encouraged investors to “pay close attention to the risks inherent in market-based pricing”.
China Resources New Energy develops and operates wind and solar power plants across 31 provincial-level divisions, with a total capacity of 41.6GW, larger than the power capacity of Norway, according to 2024 data from the US Energy Information Administration. In the first quarter it reported revenues of Rmb6.2bn and net profit of Rmb1.6bn.
The IPO comes amid signs that mainland China’s equity capital markets are recovering after a prolonged period of slow approvals from regulators.
Hong Kong’s capital markets experienced an uptick in listings last year following an extended slump, but the rebound on the mainland was more muted.
The total value of equity IPO issuance in mainland China this year stands at Rmb122.6bn, up more than 90 per cent from the same period last year.
Other large Chinese companies with plans to list include memory chipmakers YMTC and CXMT.
