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The renewable energy arm of a Chinese state-owned conglomerate is preparing to list on the Shenzhen stock exchange in mainland China’s largest initial public offering in more than four years.
China Resources New Energy Holdings is set to raise $3.6bn when it starts trading in Shenzhen in the largest share sale in mainland China since Cnooc’s Shanghai IPO in 2022.
According to an announcement made to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, the company will raise about Rmb24.5bn by offering 2.42bn shares priced at just over Rmb10.
The issuance attracted strong interest from retail investors, with the tranche of shares reserved to be offered online being oversubscribed by 683 times even after a clawback mechanism for offline investors was triggered.
Retail investors’ interest may have been boosted by a recent Beijing crackdown aimed at limiting Chinese citizens’ exposure to US equity markets. The regulator’s warning to buy overseas stocks only through official channels came within days of Elon Musk’s SpaceX revealing details of its blockbuster IPO.
The company is the renewable energy arm of China Resources Power, which is listed in Hong Kong and is itself a subsidiary of the sprawling state-owned conglomerate China Resources Holdings.
China Resources Power first proposed a spin-off of China Resources New Energy in March 2023. It is finally coming to market amid signs of a broader revival in mainland China’s capital markets, with IPO equity issuance volumes onshore up 138 per cent compared with the same time last year.
China’s security regulator tightened the IPO approval process during a market downturn between 2021 and 2024 as part of efforts to support the stock market.
China’s benchmark CSI 300 index is up about 6 per cent this year compared with a decline of about 9 per cent for Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index.
China Resources New Energy Holdings produces electricity from solar and wind farms across 31 Chinese provinces, according to its website. By the end of last year, it had almost 14mn kilowatts of installed solar power capacity and 27.6mn kilowatts of wind power capacity.
China Resources’ sprawling operations include Snow Beer, one of the world’s biggest-selling lagers, which is mostly sold in mainland China. It has nine entities listed in Hong Kong, including CR Beer, CR Land and CR Power Holdings.
The group traces its history back to Hong Kong during the second world war, where its predecessor business, Liow & Co, was set up as a communist organisation dedicated to providing supplies to China in its battle against Japanese forces.
