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Hong Kong Media Firm Soars 880 Percent on Debut Amid IPO Frenzy

The rally gives the company a market value of HK$2.2 billion, about 23 times sales and 60 times net income in 2017.

Hong Kong Media Firm Soars 880 Percent on Debut Amid IPO Frenzy
A bell sits near screens displaying price charts. (Photographer: Jose Cendon/Bloomberg)

(Bloomberg) -- Most Kwai Chung Ltd., a provider of advertising and media services, surged as much as 880 percent on its first trading day in Hong Kong, heading for the city’s strongest mainboard debut in more than two years.

The rally gives the company a market value of HK$2.2 billion ($280 million), about 23 times sales and 60 times net income in 2017. Retail investors ordered 6,289 times the stock originally available to them, a record subscription ratio. B & S International Holdings Ltd., a bubble tea maker, was about 2,600 times oversubscribed in an offering earlier this month.

As retail investors flock to IPOs, the city’s average retail subscription ratio has tripled to 340 times this year from 2017, data compiled by Bloomberg showed.

Most Kwai Chung was named as a play on a Chinese character used in Hong Kong’s biggest broadcaster Television Broadcasts Ltd., which is trading at about 2.5 times sales.

To contact the reporter on this story: Fox Hu in Hong Kong at fhu7@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Divya Balji at dbalji1@bloomberg.net, Fion Li, Naoto Hosoda

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.