China’s No. 2 online retailer JD.com Inc. raised $3.9 billion by securing a secondary listing in Hong Kong, representing the world’s second-biggest listing this year.
WHO: JD.com was founded by Liu Qiangdong, also known as Richard Liu, in 1998, who started selling computer parts at a market stall in Beijing and by 2003 had built a chain of 12 electronics stores across the city. When the SARS outbreak struck China he closed all his stores and shifted to selling his wares online instead.
In October 2008, JD Mall began offering general merchandise, transforming the business from an electronics retailer to a full-fledged e-commerce platform.
IN THEIR OWN WORDS: “When we went public six years ago, our shareholder structure in the capital market at the time was still inclined towards Europe and the U.S. In recent years, although we have had some expansion in our international business, our core users and business of JD.com is still largely on mainland China,” said Xu Lei, Chief Executive of JD Retail.
Xu said the company chose to hold its secondary listing in Hong Kong because it is one of the “world’s freest market economies” and because investors in Hong Kong understand mainland businesses and are very “mature” and “stable.”
“We think that because of consumers in Asia and the retail and internet industry, investors will be more familiar with our development and improvements each year. We hope to have some changes in terms of the investors in our company’s capital structure,” he added.
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