FAST NEWS: Tianqi Lithium’s Shares Sag on Hong Kong Listing Day

The latest: Chinese lithium product giant Tianqi Lithium Corp. (9696.HK; 002466.SZ) listed shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange Wednesday, the second lithium-related company to be on mainland and Hong Kong bourses.

Looking up: Tianqi was priced at the upper limit HK$82 of its IPO price range, raising HK$13.46 billion ($1.7 billion) and making it the largest IPO in terms of capital raised this year.

Take Note: The Company’s Hong Kong public offering was 9.3 times oversubscribed, reflecting a less-than-enthusiastic response from investors. As the oversubscription in the public offering is less than 15 times, a reallocation of offer shares from the international offering to the public offering won’t kick in.

Digging Deeper: Tianqi Lithium has been listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange since 2010. It applied for a Hong Kong listing in 2018, but shelved the plan amid falling lithium prices and a cash squeeze after its purchase of Sociedad Quimica y Minera (SQM.US), a Chilean lithium company. As lithium carbonate prices rose sharply last year, Tianqi seized the opportunity to relaunch its Hong Kong IPO and was eventually able to successfully list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Market Reaction: Tianqi’s H-shares have so far performed poorly in their debut session, dropping 11.4% from their IPO price to a low of HK$72.65. They then started to climb, touching HK$79.10 by the midday, still down 3.5% from their open. Its A-shares closed at 125.58 yuan at the break, down 1.7%.

Translation by Jony Ho

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