Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group Ltd., the company with revenue greater than
Tiffany & Co. (TIF), raised HK$15.8 billion ($2 billion) after selling
shares at the bottom of a price range marketed to investors, said two people
with knowledge of the matter.
The company sold 1.05 billion shares at HK$15 apiece, said the people,
asking not to be identified because the information is private. Chow Tai
Fook had offered the shares at HK$15 to HK$21 each, according to its IPO
prospectus. Had the jeweler sold the shares above $18.52 apiece, the IPO
would have been Hong Kong’s biggest this year.
Chow Tai Fook joins a growing list of companies that have priced their stock
offerings at or near the minimum amount sought as stocks have tumbled in
Hong Kong amid concerns about Europe’s debt crisis. New China Life
Insurance Co. priced its $1.9 billion Hong Kong and Shanghai IPO near the
bottom of its marketed range yesterday, and HKT Trust’s $1.2 billion
November IPO was priced at the low end.
The jewelry chain, controlled by billionaire Cheng Yu Tung, joins Italian
fashion house Prada SpA in raising funds in Hong Kong, where luxury-goods
companies tap China’s growing affluence. Prada raised $2.5 billion in June,
and its shares have dropped 10 percent from the offer price.
Big Blessing
Deutsche Bank AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., HSBC Holdings Plc and JPMorgan
Chase & Co. managed the IPO for Chow Tai Fook. Joseph Lo, an external
spokesman for Chow Tai Fook at Brunswick Group, declined to comment.
Founded in 1929 in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, the company was
named after founder Chow Chi Yuen. “Tai Fook” means “big blessing” in
Chinese. The company, with more than 1,400 outlets in greater China, plans
to start trading on Dec. 15, the prospectus shows.
The shares priced with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index down 2.6 percent as of
11:41 a.m. today. The benchmark is down 19 percent this year. Baoxin Auto
Group Ltd, a dealer of BMW and Land Rover cars in China, also priced its $
415 million Hong Kong IPO at the bottom of the range marketed to investors,
and Citic Securities Co., raised $1.8 billion in September after selling
shares in the low end of its range.
Chow Tai Fook has 12.6 percent of China’s jewelry market, with a 20 percent
share in Hong Kong and Macau, the company said in the IPO filing, citing a
Frost and Sullivan report. It sources rough diamonds from companies such as
Rio Tinto and Diamond Trading Co., the distribution arm of De Beers.
Retail sales in China have grown an average of 17 percent in the first ten
months of this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. In Hong Kong,
Chinese visitors splurging on high- end shoes, watches and jewelry have
driven monthly retail sales to record highs.