JD.com Major Tech Unit Said to Plan Up to $2 Billion Hong Kong IPO

BEIJING, January 24 (TMTPOST)—One of the most important subsidiary of JD.com may revive its listing plan that being shelved nearly a year ago and change the venue from mainland China to Hong Kong.

Source: Visual China

JD Technology (JDT), a business group under JD.com with a focus on serving governmental and corporate clients through technology, planned to list in Hong Kong this year with the aim to raise between US$1 billion and US$2 billion, International Financing Review (IFR) reported on Monday. The financial media outlet also said JDT is working with the Bank of America, two Chinese brokerage firms Citic Securities and Haitong International Securities about the deal and may launch a new financing round prior to the initial public offering (IPO).

JDT later that day said no comment on the report about Hong Kong IPO. If the report did reveal the accurate signal, it can be seemed as JD’s latest effort for homecoming as the leading Chinese e-commerce company itself and its arm JD Logistics has listed in Hong Kong in June, 2020 and May, 2021 respectively.

JDT, as the subsidiary that combines JD’s businesses of Cloud, artificial intelligence (AI) with the digital technology, was JD’s only major unit on track of listing and hasn’t become a listed company yet. The company, formerly known as JD Digits, used to apply for raising about RMB20.4 billion through a listing in Shanghai’s Nasdaq-style STAR Market, officially known as the Shanghai Stock Exchange Science and Technology Innovation Board, in 2020. In last April, the Shanghai Stock Exchange announced that it has terminated listing review of JD Digits, for the JD’s fintech arm or its sponsors withdrew the application for IPO, and the China Securities Journal learned the decision was made on the company’s own development strategy, right after JD unveiled it late March last year to spin off JD Cloud and AI businesses to JD Digits, valued at about RMB15.7 billion (US$24 billion) to JD Digits, in exchange for newly issued ordinary shares of the fintech unit. JD expected the transaction to allow more focuses on core competences and synergistic business to better serve customers, and JD Digits would be better positioned to deliver a suite of cutting-edge technology services to its business partners.

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