Chinese Cancer Screening Firm Triples in Hong Kong IPO Debut

(Bloomberg) -- Chinese cancer screening biotech firm New Horizon Health Ltd. more than tripled on its Hong Kong debut on Thursday, notching the biggest first-day rise in the city’s history for initial public offerings raising at least HK$2 billion ($258 million).

New Horizon Health closed at HK$84, up 215% from the offer price of HK$26.66, which was already at the upper end of a marketed range. The biotech company raised $263 million in the IPO.

Thursday’s pop shows that the IPO frenzy that’s gripped Hong Kong is intact, coming two weeks after short-video company Kuaishou Technology leaped 161% in its debut, the second-best ever for an IPO over $1 billion in the world.

Over 1 million Hong Kong investors put in orders worth some HK$844 billion for Qiming Venture Partners-backed New Horizon Health’s IPO. That represents a subscription rate of 4,133 times, the second-highest on record after Most Kwai Chung’s 2018 IPO, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

First-time share sales have had their best start to the year on record in Asia, helped by Kuaishou’s mammoth offering and fueled by markets awash with liquidity, a stock rally, as well as hordes of retail investors bidding for shares. The dizzying first-day pops as well as the flurry of IPOs by blank-cheque companies in the U.S. have led some to warn of overheated markets.

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