Viva Extends Hong Kong Biotech Fever in City's Hottest 2019 IPO

(Bloomberg) -- Viva Biotech Holdings bucked a decline across Asia on its trading debut following Hong Kong’s most popular initial public offering this year.

The Shanghai-based company lured retail investors with orders for about 107 times the shares initially available to them, the highest ratio among 2019 offerings above $100 million in the city, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The institutional tranche of the IPO was “significantly oversubscribed,” Viva said in a filing, without providing more details.

Viva Biotech raised $194 million selling shares at HK$4.41 apiece, the top end of a marketed range. The sale was completed last week before an escalation of China-U.S. trade tensions that tanked global equities market.

Shares of Viva Biotech rose 2.3% to HK$4.51 as of 11:04 a.m. in Hong Kong, outperforming the 1.7% drop in the benchmark Hang Seng Index. The stock climbed as much as 5.9% earlier.

Another biotech firm CanSino Biologics Inc. attracted orders for 91 times its initial retail tranche in March, making it Hong Kong’s second hottest IPO of above $100 million this year. The vaccine developer surged 58% on its debut and has gained more than 68% since the offering.

Read more about Hong Kong IPO market: What Ails Hong Kong’s IPO Market? Quite a Lot: Nisha Gopalan

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

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