In this briefing:
- Another MGO For HKICIM As HNA Sells Stake Back To Blackstone
- Global Capital Flows Show China’s Collapsing Export Markets Could Soon Revive
- ECM Weekly (9 March 2019) – Lyft, Shenwan Hongyuan, RHB Bank, Sea Ltd, Xinyi Solar, China Gas
- Japan – Chinese Flu
1. Another MGO For HKICIM As HNA Sells Stake Back To Blackstone
Late Friday night, Hong Kong International Construction Investment Management Group Co., (687 HK) (“HKICIM”) announced HNA Finance had entered into a SPA in which Times Holdings, a Blackstone-controlled vehicle, had conditionally agreed to buy 69.54% of HKICIM’s issued shares for HK$3/share in an HK$7bn transaction. Should the SPA complete, Times will make a mandatory unconditional offer – also at $3.00/share (14.5% premium to last close) – for the remaining 30.46% of shares out.
This proposal arrives nearly three years after HNA bought a 66% in Tysan Holdings – as HKICIM was previously known – from Blackstone for HK$4.53 per share, triggering an MGO.
This share sale underlines HNA Group’s ongoing strategy to ease its debt burden and align its core business focus towards aviation, not construction and property.
HKICIM made headlines in the past not just for its eye-watering property acquisitions at Kai Tak (up to HK$13.5k/sqft in March 2017), the former site of Hong Kong’s international airport; but that HNA was also oddly motivated to acquire these parcels of land at record breaking prices to “snatch land and pricing power from the city’s real estate cartel“.
HKICIM sold its last Kai Tak site to Wheelock & (20 HK) last month (for a loss of $740mn), leaving the company with an estimated net cash position of ~$6.0bn (using FY18 interim numbers) or ~$1.80/share, it’s foundation piling operations, a development site in Hong Kong and a residential and commercial property development project in Shenyang.
The closing of the SPA is subject to the satisfaction or waiver of various conditions. However, the short time frame (13 business days from this announcement) in which to secure, fulfill or waive these conditions suggest minimal deal risk.
This will trade tight to, if not through terms, with an anticipated completion late April. There will be no bump to the Offer. Times does not intend to avail itself to compulsory acquisition and intends to maintain HKICIM’s listing; while both Times and HKICIM will take appropriate steps to maintain a sufficient public float after the close of the Offer.
2. Global Capital Flows Show China’s Collapsing Export Markets Could Soon Revive
- Capital flows are strongly Granger causal
- Gross capital flows lead World shipping activity by 4 months
- Capital flows have been slowly rising since June 2018: in February they jumped
- Reinforces out pro-Asia and pro-China investment message
3. ECM Weekly (9 March 2019) – Lyft, Shenwan Hongyuan, RHB Bank, Sea Ltd, Xinyi Solar, China Gas
Aequitas Research puts out a weekly update on the deals that have been covered by Smartkarma Insight Providers recently, along with updates for upcoming IPOs.
It has been a fairly hectic week. We have been busy writing on upcoming IPOs, post-IPO events, and, to top it all off, there were four placements (Sea Ltd, RHB Bank, Xinyi Solar, and China Gas) this week.
Hong Kong’s ECM activity seems to be picking up momentum. Starting off with approvals, Viva Biotech (1577881D HK) and Dongzheng Automotive Finance (2718 HK) filed their respective PHIP on HKEX. Ke Yan, CFA, FRM had previously written on Viva Biotech here while we are currently working on Dongzheng Automotive Finance (2718 HK) and also heard that Dongzheng Auto Finance had already kicked off pre-marketing on Monday.
For upcoming IPOs with completed bookbuilds, Yincheng International Holding (1902 HK) traded flat on debut (expected for a small and leveraged developer) while Zhejiang New Century Hotel Management Group (1158 HK), which had Ctrip and GreenTree as cornerstone investors, will list next Monday.
As for early coverage on IPOs, Sumeet Singh had already given a broad overview of ESR Cayman (ESR HK)‘s business. He will be following up with more detailed analyses in the coming weeks.
In the US, Futu Holdings Ltd (FHL US) debuted well on Friday, trading up to as high as US$17 per share before closing just above US$15 but still well above the IPO price. We had been slightly more conservative because it is not exactly a very exciting company doing something groundbreaking but the management background in tech appears strong and there are no corporate governance issues.Sumeet Singh will update on trading liquidity and post-IPO analysis next week.
For pipeline IPOs, we heard that Ehang is planning its US IPO and it is looking to raise about US$500m. This is the Chinese drone manufacturer which made waves just over a year ago with a video of a team testing its autonomous aerial vehicle shown in the video below. Suffice to say, if and when the IPO launches, it will be interesting.
Ruhnn had also filed for IPO this week and we heard that pre-marketing will start next week while bookbuild will likely launch end of the month. This is an Alibaba-backed e-commerce influencer platform and we will be analyzing the company soon.
We had also been exploring potential trade ideas surrounding lock-up expiry such as Nio (蔚来) Lock-Up Expiry – Scattered Pre-IPO Investors to Be the Sellers and Meituan Dianping (美团点评): Thoughts Before Lock-Up Expiry. NIO’s lock-up expiry had been an unfortunate case of poor outlook guidance in Q4 coinciding with lock-up expiry coming on the week after (11th March).
Accuracy Rate:
Our overall accuracy rate is 72.1% for IPOs and 63.6% for Placements
(Performance measurement criteria is explained at the end of the note)
New IPO filings
- Ruhnn (the U.S, ~US$200m)
- Sun Car Insurance (Hong Kong, >US$100m)
- Sichuan Languang Justbon Services (Hong Kong, ~US$100m)
- Mabpharm (Hong Kong, re-filed)
- Intellicentrics (Hong Kong, CLSA sole-sponsor, likely to be <US$100m)
Below is a snippet of our IPO tool showing upcoming events for the next week. The IPO tool is designed to provide readers with timely information on all IPO related events (Book open/closing, listing, initiation, lock-up expiry, etc) for all the deals that we have worked on. You can access the tool here or through the tools menu.
News on Upcoming IPOs
- Chinese drone maker EHang plans US IPO
- Airport REIT could finance Singapore’s massive infrastructure ambitions
- PNB MetLife Insurance IPO likely in Q2FY20
Smartkarma Community’s this week Analysis on Upcoming IPO
- Lyft IPO Preview
- Lyft IPO Preview: Maybe We’ll Just Walk?
- LYFT Pre-IPO – Drivers and Shared Rides Hold the Key But the Numbers Are Missing
- Embassy Office Parks REIT – Comparison with AIT and a Look at the Required Yield
- Shenwan Hongyuan (申万宏源) A+H: A Commoditized Broker Business
- Polycab IPO: Largest Cables Player, Asset-Heavy Low ROE Model = Vulnerable to Govt Capex Slowdown
- Hyundai Autoever IPO Valuation Analysis
4. Japan – Chinese Flu
By Konstantinos Venetis, Senior Economist
- Japan skirts recession but near-term prospects remain weak
- Deflationary headwinds to persist in H1, threatening business spending
- Recovery likely in late 2019 as world trade finds a firmer footing
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