As Chinese technology businesses under strong criticism at home and abroad, social media powerhouse Weibo has made its Hong Kong stock market debut.
Weibo’s stock dropped more than 7% on the first day of trade.
Alibaba and JD.com, two other significant Chinese technology businesses, are both listed in the United States and Hong Kong.
It comes only days after Didi, the Chinese ride-hailing behemoth, announced that it will relocate its listing from the United States to Hong Kong.
Weibo’s secondary share sale in Hong Kong garnered $385 million (£290 million).
In the previous six months, the company’s shares on the New York Stock Exchange have lost about a third of their value.
Trade tensions between the United States and China, which soared during the Trump administration, show no signs of subsiding under President Biden.
Companies with shares listed in the United States have found themselves in the center of the continuing trade war between the world’s two largest economies.
Beijing has intensified its monitoring of China’s largest enterprises in recent months, with the technology sector receiving special attention.
Meanwhile, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of the United States has finalized guidelines that would allow US-listed international businesses to be delisted if their auditors fail to comply with authorities’ demands for information.
Some Chinese companies are now exploring for alternate sources of finance in case they need to delist their stock from the New York Stock Exchange.
“If all Chinese businesses are compelled to delist from US markets, it will be terrible. Despite their fierce rivalry, the two nations need, must, and must be financially, economically, technologically, socially, and culturally connected “The executive director of China Money Network in Hong Kong, Nina Xiang, stated.
Didi Global, the world’s largest ride-hailing company, said last week that it will delist from the New York Stock Exchange and list in Hong Kong.
It garnered $4.4 billion in its first public offering on the New York Stock Exchange at the end of June, but China’s internet regulator ordered online merchants not to sell Didi’s app within days, claiming it improperly acquired customers’ personal data.
Didi’s statement that it will delist in the United States came only hours after the Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it would press forward with its efforts to delist Chinese companies from US stock markets for failing to comply with new accounting regulations.
Didi’s stock has dropped by more than half since it began trading in New York five months ago.
Ms. Xiang feels Weibo is secure for the time being: “A lot relies on whether Chinese and American regulators can hash out their disagreements on access to auditing records.”
