Renhe Commercial Holdings' shares yesterday closed their first session of trading at HK$1.18 – a gain of 5 cents on their offer price – while the Hang Seng index fell 5.2 per cent to a three-year closing low. The benchmark has more than halved in value so far this year.
Many companies in Asia and beyond have postponed or abandoned initial public offerings while equity markets continue to be volatile and investors shun risk.
Fresh listings in Hong Kong have raised just $8.3bn so far this year, compared with $26.7bn in the same period in 2007, and $37.8bn for the whole of last year, Thomson Reuters data show. Deal sizes have shrunk. There have been 25 IPOs in Hong Kong since January, with an average size of $333.8m, compared with 60 in the corresponding period in 2007, which raised $445m on average each.