The Business of Fashion
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
On Thursday, the Chinese e-commerce giant’s logistics unit received approval to press on with an initial public offering that could raise up to $4 billion on the Hong Kong stock exchange, people familiar with the matter told SCMP.
The listing would follow that of another subsidiary, JD Health, which raised $3.5 billion in December; JD.com raised $4.5 billion in a secondary listing last June. Meanwhile, video streaming platform Bilibili raised $2.6 billion in Hong Kong in March, the same month search engine and AI firm Baidu raised $3.1 billion.
The news also comes in the wake of heightened regulatory pressure on Chinese tech giants including JD.com rival, Alibaba, which was fined $18.2 billion yuan ($2.8 billion) this month for anti-monopoly violations. On Thursday, JD.com was among 13 firms summoned by the country’s top financial regulator (others included Tencent and Bytedance) and urged to put an end to anti-competitive practices.
With consumers tightening their belts in China, the battle between global fast fashion brands and local high street giants has intensified.
Investors are bracing for a steep slowdown in luxury sales when luxury companies report their first quarter results, reflecting lacklustre Chinese demand.
The French beauty giant’s two latest deals are part of a wider M&A push by global players to capture a larger slice of the China market, targeting buzzy high-end brands that offer products with distinctive Chinese elements.
Post-Covid spend by US tourists in Europe has surged past 2019 levels. Chinese travellers, by contrast, have largely favoured domestic and regional destinations like Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan.