Toymaker Bloks soars 73pc ahead of debut

Chinese toymaker Bloks rose more than 73 percent in the gray market ahead of its trading debut in Hong Kong today, handing investors a paper gain of over HK$13,000 per board lot.

The robust performance from the popular maker of Ultraman and Transformers figurines came after the enthusiastic response to Bloks' initial public offering made it the city's second-largest new listing by margin loans - excluding Ant Group's failed IPO - and the third-most subscribed listing.

Retail investors flooded Bloks' share sale with subscriptions worth HK$873.5 billion.

Bloks closed 73.4 percent higher at HK$104.7 apiece on Futu Securities' platform after rising as much as 82 percent, translating into a paper gain of HK$13,305 for per board lot of 300 shares. Its shares climbed 74.4 and 73.4 percent on Phillip Securities and Bright Smart Securities' platform, respectively.

Bloks set its IPO price at HK$60.35, the upper end of the pricing range, with its tranche nearly 6,000 times oversubscribed, the highest on record after Most Kwai Chung (1716) and Herbs Generation (2593), whose offering were oversubscribed 6,288 and 6,083 times respectively.

In other news, Chinese cloud-computing and IT infrastructure firm Unisplendour is preparing for secondary listing in Hong Kong this year that could raise about US$1 billion (HK$7.8 billion).

Staff reporter and agencies