US-China tensions have not blunted American investors' enthusiasm for Chinese companies.
US investors’ appetite for public offerings of Chinese companies is getting an early test in 2020. The US IPO pipeline was ready to burst at the new year, says Renaissance Capital, with 61 registered and another 60 on deck. A host of Chinese companies figured among the anticipated issues.
Phoenix Tree Holdings, which renovates, furnishes and subleases apartments in Chinese cities, planned to raise $164 million on the New York Stock Exchange on a $3.1 billion market capitalization. I-Mab Biopharma, a late-stage cancer and autoimmune biotech, which raised more than $100 million on the Nasdaq in January, is the first Chinese biotech to IPO in the US in more than two years.
Lizhi, a Chinese podcast platform for user-generated content, planned to raise $49 million by issuing American depositary shares on the Nasdaq. AnPac Bio-Medical Science, which sells a multicancer screening and detection test, expected to raise $22 million.
The flurry of filings came as the US and China agreed on a phase-one trade deal following years of bilateral talks. The deal could boost agricultural sales by US producers to China and launch the process of reforming China’s practice of forced technology transfer.
