Gaming group NetEase will sell up to $3bn of shares in a Hong Kong secondary offering, in what could mark the start of a wave of Chinese companies raising capital in the city as tensions between Beijing and Washington simmer.
People familiar with the matter said that NetEase, one of China’s biggest makers of online video games, would begin placing shares with institutional investors from Monday ahead of publicly listing its stock on Hong Kong’s bourse. The sale is expected to raise between $2bn and $3bn.
NetEase shares currently trade on New York’s Nasdaq but Chinese companies increasingly fear that they could fall victim to growing US-China hostilities. President Donald Trump on Friday announced a probe into Chinese groups listed in the US and last month ordered the main federal government pension fund not to invest in such companies.